Are Wealth Effects Important for Canada

Some analysts believe that a sharp rise in equity values was an important factor in the strong consumer spending between 1995 and 2000. Empirical evidence suggests, however, that consumer spending responds more to changes in housing wealth than it does to equity wealth. Pichette reports findings from an earlier study by Pichette and Tremblay (2003) which used a vector-error-correction model to determine the long-run relationship between various components of wealth and consumer spending. The study found that consumption does not respond significantly to a permanent increase in stock market wealth, while a permanent increase in housing wealth leads to a significant rise in consumption. These findings suggest important implications for monetary policy decision-makers, since movements in wealth will also affect aggregate demand and inflation.

Dynamic Factor Analysis for Measuring Money

Technological innovations in the financial industry pose major problems for the measurement of monetary aggregates. The authors describe work on a new measure of money that has a more satisfactory means of identifying and removing the effects of financial innovations. The new method distinguishes between the measured data (currency and deposit balances) and the underlying phenomena of interest (the intended use of money for transactions and savings). Although the classification scheme used for monetary aggregates was originally designed to provide a proxy for the phenomena of interest, it is breaking down. The authors feel it is beneficial to move to an explicit attempt to measure an index of intended use. The distinction is only a preliminary step. It provides a mechanism that allows for financial innovations to affect measured data without fundamentally altering the underlying phenomena being measured, but it does not automatically accommodate financial innovations. To achieve that step will require further work. At least intuitively, however, the focus on an explicit measurement model provides a better framework for identifying when financial innovations change the measured data. Although the work is preliminary, and there are many outstanding problems, if the approach proves successful it will result in the most fundamental reformulation in the way money is measured since the introduction of monetary aggregates half a century ago. The authors review previous methodologies and describe a dynamic factor approach that makes an explicit distinction between the measured data and the underlying phenomena. They present some preliminary estimates using simulated and real data.Econometric and statistical methods; Monetary aggregates; Monetary and financial indicators

Pour en finir avec la laïcité (sans retomber dans l’eau bénite)

Le débat sur la laïcité, parce qu'il s'inscrit dans le cadre du dualisme ontologique légué par le christianisme, s'avère incapable de penser l'auto-institution de la société dans le maintien d'un rapport - profane - à la transcendance. Héritière du positivisme du XIXe siècle, la laïcité bute désormais sur l'aporie de ce qui est présenté comme une pédagogie sociale procédant d'une réification de l'espace social. Au nom du pluralisme, elle nourrit ainsi une hétéronomie croissante de la société, allant de pair avec une gestion technocratique du social.Because the debate on laicity is inscribed within the framework of ontological dualism, a legacy of Christianity, it appears incapable of thinking the " auto-institution " of society while maintaining a relationship -- profane -- with that which is transcendent. As heir to i9th century positivism, the laicity comes up against the aporia of that which is presented as social pedagogy arising from the reification of social space. In the name of pluralism, laicity nourishes a growing heteronomy of society, paired with a technocratic management of the social

Extracting Information from the Business Outlook Survey: A Principal-Component Approach

This article reviews recent work that uses principal-component analysis to extract information common to indicators from the Bank of Canada’s Business Outlook Survey (BOS). The authors use correlation analysis and an out-of-sample forecasting exercise to assess and compare the information content of the principal component with that of responses to key individual survey questions on growth in real gross domestic product and in real business investment. Results suggest that summarizing the common movements among BOS indicators may provide useful information for forecasting near-term growth in business investment. For growth in real gross domestic product, however, the survey’s balance of opinion on future sales growth appears to be more informative.

Le patrimoine religieux de la Nouvelle-Écosse. Signes et paradoxes en Acadie

Le nom d’une institution laïque, appelée Université Sainte-Anne, apparaît déjà comme un paradoxe. Pourtant, l’histoire de ce collège, fondé par les eudistes en 1890, explique l’appellation de l’établissement. Malgré sa laïcisation en 1971, le souvenir des fondateurs s’y maintient et le respect de leur mission se poursuit autrement dans le même lieu, qui est un véritable site du patrimoine religieux des Acadiens de la Nouvelle-Écosse. Toutefois, les autres éléments du patrimoine religieux acadien seront-ils aussi bien servis? Au fait, à qui appartient ce patrimoine? Au clergé et à l’Église, qui assurent les services pastoraux auprès des Acadiens, ou aux fidèles, qui défraient les coûts de construction et d’entretien de ce patrimoine? Sommes-nous en présence de lieux de culte ou de biens culturels? Ce sont les réponses à des questions de cette nature qui déterminent les principaux axes retenus pour guider la réflexion de ces jours de colloque