Jacques Raynauld

Canadian Monetary Policy: Will the Checklist Approach Ever Get Us to Price Stability?

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the checklist approach that the Bank of Canada has followed in one way or another over the last two decades is likely to lead us to the stated objective of price stability. The analysis of Canadian monetary policy is performed through the estimation of a Bayesian VAR model of a set of important Canadian macroeconomic variables in their international context. To estimate the model the authors borrowed form C. Sims (1989), but they also transposed his methodology to take into account Canadian features. The results suggest that the exchange rate has been high on the checklist of the Bank of Canada over the years and that, rather, the Bank should concentrate its attention on (broad) monetary aggregates if it really wants to deliver price stability.

Canadian Monetary Policy 1989-1993: What Were the Bank of Canada's True Actions in the Determination of Monetary Conditions?

During its recent battle against inflation from 1988 to the present, the Bank of Canada has been accused of all the evils that plagued the Canadian economy: high dollar and interest rates, recession, and slow recovery. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the action taken by the Bank during the period from 1989 to 1993 in order to characterize precisely the way monetary policy was conducted during this period. We find that, contrary to what analysts have usually stated, monetary policy actions were far from tight in 1989. However, from 1990 on, the Bank took a series of restrictive actions in order to discipline financial markets giving an undue importance to its objective of orderly markets to the detriment of monetary expansion.

BVAR Models with Economic Priors: An Application to the Propagation of U.S. Regional Cycles to Canada

To overcome the over-parameterization problems typically associated with the estimation of large VAR systems, Litterman (1979, 1986) and Doan, Litterman, and Sims (1984) have proposed the inclusion ofstatisticala priori information. In this paper, we investigate how economica priori information based on regional input-output tables and trade flows statistics could help estimate a large U.S.-Canadian regional model. Instead of relying on the usual Choleski factorization, we present the variance decomposition based on a national-regional unobservable variables model. Using monthly series (total employment, 1966:1-1986:12) on five Canadian regions and four U.S. ones, we are able to characterize the north-south propagation mechanism.

Proposed Framework for Transdisciplinary Product and Process Design Education

Breakthrough products and services (e.g., iPhone, YouTube, Facebook) show us that products must do more than just “do the job”. They must “do the job” in an overwhelming, industry transforming way to overtake competitors. What can we learn from these successes and how could this change the way we teach our students? How can students be prepared to take an active part in the creation of the next breakthrough products and services in industry? In this paper, we describe an initiative to create a transdisciplinary project learning environment by growing on many interdisciplinary experiences and building on previous multidisciplinary successes like MATI Montreal research-transfer center (www.matimtl.ca). It regroups three institutions in engineering, education and business to develop and study the use of technology in education. MATI houses an innovative ideation support systems lab called the Hybrid Ideation Space [1]. The proposed transdisciplinary framework will be part of MATI’s strategic objectives, under its collaborative product and process design initiative. The proposed framework will: 1) Cultivate the design and innovation abilities of students in complex and realistic industry mentored projects. 2) Make students experiment the divergent points of view and expertise from different specialists involved in industrial product development. 3) Make students participate in the complete product development and production cycle multiple times. Develop a holistic view of project issues and impacts. 4) Build international academic relations so students can have true multinational, transdisciplinary project experiences. 5) Use the projects as a basis for design methodology and tools research to improve the project framework and transfer new acquired knowledge to industry.

Learning Outcomes in a Model-Based Approach to Curriculum Design

Curriculum or program design has received considerable attention recently. The EQF initiative, the CDIO curriculum or other integrated program developments based on learning outcomes and/or competencies have increased the complexity of program design, appropriation, diffusion and implementation. Various model-based or standardized approaches have been proposed, including IMS-LD, CDM, XCRI or MLO. In this paper, we propose a general model-based approach to curriculum design that has been successfully apply to course syllabi. We show how learning outcomes (and other features) could be incorporated either in a top-down or bottom-up approach. Our approach merges also seamlessly with learning outcome assessment in courses or in portfolios. We also discuss how accreditation reports can be automatically generated.

From Models to Webapps

In conducting IT projects or project web in particular, before starting the development of the final application we often make use of mockup (design) and/or prototype (functional). We propose in this paper a model-based approach to build rapidly webapps prototypes. Simple, flexible, and as general as possible, we developed a tool that can easily be specialized/customized to use cases for pilot projects and/or becoming prototypes or mini-applications.

Zone cours: un système de gestion de plans de cours normalisés

Still at the center of university teaching, syllabi, either in paper or electronic format (PDF, HTML), are not easily accessible to students or the general public. Moreover, the users interfaces and the vocabulary employed can vary across courses, an unnecessary hurdle for the users. HEC Montreal has sucessfully launched Course Zone (http://zonecours.hec.ca), a centralized model-based syllabi platform with a common users interface. Course Zone is now used in 90% of the courses offered.