Canada's Pioneering Experience with a Flexible Exchange Rate in the 1950s: (Hard) Lessons Learned for Monetary Policy in a Small Open Economy

Michael Bordo, Ali Dib and Lawrence Schembri ()

Staff Working Papers from Bank of Canada

Abstract: This paper revisits Canada's pioneering experience with floating exchange rate over the period 1950–1962. It examines whether the floating rate was the best option for Canada in the 1950s by developing and estimating a New Keynesian small open economy model of the Canadian economy. The model is then used to conduct a counterfactual analysis of the impact of different monetary policies and exchange rate regimes. The main finding indicates that the flexible exchange rate helped reduce the volatility of key macroeconomic variables. The Canadian monetary authorities, however, clearly did not understand all of the implications of conducting monetary policy under a flexible exchange rate and a high degree of capital mobility. The paper confirms that monetary policy was more volatile in the post-1957 period and Canada's macroeconomic performance suffered as a result.

Keywords: Exchange rates; Economic models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E32 E37 F31 F32 N1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 55 pages
Date: 2007
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba, nep-his, nep-ifn, nep-mac and nep-mon
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Canada's Pioneering Experience with a Flexible Exchange Rate in the 1950s: (Hard) Lessons Learned for Monetary Policy in a Small Open Economy (2010)
Working Paper: Canada's Pioneering Experience with a Flexible Exchange Rate in the 1950s:(Hard) Lessons Learned for Monetary Policy in a Small Open Economy (2007)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bca:bocawp:07-45

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