This paper examines the behaviour of the Bank of Canada (BoC) since the adoption of the inflation-targeting framework. We use a newly released dataset that contains quarterly vintages of real-time historical data and BoC staff forecasts, and we present the following novel empirical findings. First, the BoC appears to have increased its focus towards the state of the economy. Over the sample period, we find that the response to inflation weakens and the response to the real economy rises substantially. Second, the BoC appears to be responding to an alternative inflation measure: persistent expected future inflation deviations. We find that transitory or past inflation deviations do not elicit a response. Third, the BoC appears to respond asymmetrically to positive and negative persistent expected future inflation deviations. We find an aggressive response to positive inflation deviations that declines over time in favour of a modest response to negative inflation deviations, suggesting that persistent expected future inflation overshoots and undershoots elicit different responses and these responses are time-varying.

本文研究了加拿大央行（BoC）自采用通胀目标框架以来的行为。我们使用新发布的数据集，其中包含实时历史数据的季度年份和加拿大央行员工的预测，并提出以下新颖的实证结果。首先，加拿大央行似乎更加关注经济状况。在样本期内，我们发现对通胀的反应减弱，对实体经济的反应大幅上升。其次，加拿大央行似乎是在应对另一种通胀指标：持续的预期未来通胀偏差。我们发现暂时或过去的通胀偏差不会引起反应。第三，加拿大央行似乎对未来持续的预期通胀偏差的积极和消极反应不对称。我们发现，对正通胀偏差的积极反应会随着时间的推移而下降，而对负通胀偏差的温和反应则有利，这表明持续的预期未来通胀超调和低于预期会引发不同的反应，而且这些反应是随时间变化的。