tailieunhanh - Keynote Address

The return on a nominal bond can be decomposed into two components: a real rate of return and a compensation for the erosion of purchasing power arising from inflation. For conventional government nominal zero coupon bonds, such as those in the example above, the nominal return is certain (provided it is held to maturity) but the real return is not (because inflation is uncertain). An index-linked zero coupon bond would have its value linked to movements in a suitable price index to prevent inflation eroding its purchasing power (so its ‘real value’ is protected). For such a zero coupon bond the real. | Keynote Address Canada and Flexible Exchange Rates Milton Friedman The last time I had an extensive talk with an official of the Bank of Canada about exchange rates was on 13 April 1948. The official was Donald Gordon at the time the Deputy Governor. The occasion was a University of Chicago round table. The round table was a regular Sunday morning radio broadcast under the auspices of the University of Chicago. It was the most popular Sunday radio talk show. At the time Canada was experiencing a large balance-of-payments deficit thanks in part to having appreciated the dollar two years earlier. It was trying to defend the rate by using exchange controls and it was having great difficulty. That was a topic for our round table. It was broadcast from Toronto. The program itself was only half an hour but as usual on all round table programs the participants met the night before for dinner and a discussion in order to determine the content of the program. So I was able to have a very extensive discussion about the exchange rate problem with Donald Gordon and the other participant Professor . Mackintosh. My impression was hard as this may be to believe at this stage that this was the first time that Donald Gordon had ever heard a serious defence of flexible exchange rates as a way to organize the international financial arrangements. The next year 1949 Canada devalued the dollar and when that didn t work a year later on 30 September 1950 Canada floated the dollar. Another year later exchange controls were dropped and the Bank of Canada stopped intervening in the market. .