Government of Canada Doesn’t Expect Interest Rates To Rise Until 2018

Despite the hawkish tone from Bank of Canada, Parliament is feeling a little more dovish. One week after the central bank hinted at the possibility of raising interest rates, the Office of The Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) has released its projections. Looks like they don’t see interest rates moving higher until next year.

The PBO released its projections, and doesn’t anticipate a rise in interest rates until 2018. They believe it will hit a “normal” or neutral level of 3% by mid-2020. This would mean an average rate hike of over 0.31% per quarter. The relatively sharp, and somewhat ambitious, expectation is later than experts were predicting. It’s also a year later than the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario (FAO) has been anticipating.

Government of Canada Doesn’t Expect Interest Rates To Rise Until 2018 - Interest Rate Chart

Interest rate projections from today’s PBO release. The PBO uses a regression-based model that links policy rates to bond rates. This is opposed to the current lick your finger and stick it in the air model that most experts have been using to guess.

 

Why You Should Care

Interest rates impact how much money consumers have available to them. The cheaper the cost of borrowing, the less money they devote to paying interest on loans. They can take out larger mortgages, car loans, and credit lines. Note, consumers don’t make any more money, they just devote less of it to interest payments. There’s a good reason to have low interest rates, and a bad reason. Let’s go through both.

The Basic Case For Low Interest Rates

When consumers can borrow more money, they stimulate the economy. People and businesses can finance more goods at a lower cost. This creates a ripple effect – the more people spend, the more businesses have. The more businesses have, the more they can afford to pay their employees. The more they get paid, the more they spend. The cycle continues until the economy is booming and they can afford to hike interest rates. There’s a little more to it, but generally speaking it makes society feel more wealthy.

The most important things that benefit from low interest rates are mergers & acquisitions, industrial financing, and home prices. All three of these things depend on long term financing, so low interest rates make them cheaper in a way. Think of low interest rates as the Black Friday for buying really, really expensive things.

The Basic Case For Higher Interest Rates

The bad is really the same thing as the good. If left too long, people finance too much stuff, inflation runs out of control, and the price of goods expands to fill credit. Home prices are the most obvious example, where the increase in borrowing power had a direct correlation to home prices from 2005 until 2015. Prices rose mechanically with every drop in rates. That changed in 2015, when rates dropped to historic lows, and speculators realized there was almost no risk on shelter. The increased demand pushed prices faster and higher than ever. This resulted in a panic rush of buying, as buyers felt they were going to be priced out forever.

In economic terms, raising interest rates would lead to a fall in aggregate demand. Which is a really fancy way of saying it would kill cheap and easy credit. If cheap and easy credit made people feel rich, killing it would make people feel uh…not wealthy anymore. People that don’t feel wealthy don’t do things like engage in bidding wars or finance expensive cars. It would also increase the cost of the debt they are currently servicing, putting a little more pressure on household budgets.

While this would bring home prices lower, there are a few negative impacts that should be considered. When people don’t feel as wealthy, they stop spending money. Businesses that see a decline in revenues will not be as generous with employees. This has the opposite ripple effect, slowing the economy. So, is the economy strong enough to take a hit on rate hikes? Drop your thoughts below.

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9 Comments

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  • Dave 7 years ago

    No friggin way is this economy strong enough to raise rates. Even if the cooked up economic numbers that don’t factor any shadow leverage are close to right.

  • Mike 7 years ago

    “lick your finger and stick it in the air model that most experts have been using to guess.”

    LOL. I love this blog. One of the few places I can get angry, informed, and laugh at the same time. Your posts are a roller coaster of emotion. Keep up the good work!

  • Dan B 7 years ago

    “The borrowing and spending binge by Canadian households, businesses and governments (all levels) continues unabated. Growing the debt in the economy significantly faster than the economy itself grows seems to have developed into a way of life in Canada.”

    Canadian total (household, business, and all levels of government) debt numbers as of the end of March, 2017

    http://owecanada.blogspot.ca/2017/06/canadian-total-household-business-and.html

  • Ahmed 7 years ago

    Problem is, we waited too long. We should have done it 3 years ago. Now there’s going to be no comfortable way to do it.

  • Like Mike 7 years ago

    Vancouver needs to pull its head out of its butt. We’re it going to sacrifice the economy’s because they’re irrationally in love with living in that city.

    • Theo L. 7 years ago

      Is it bad that I’m shocked that the country north of here saw what happened in the US, then went “I’m not too worried about it” and kept going?

  • Fiendish Thingy 7 years ago

    That’s funny because Poloz and others at the BOC have been hinting it could raise rates as early as July, and definitely this year…

    • Bay Street Guy 7 years ago

      The funny part is that he hinted rates could rise but didn’t none of the BoC indicators are they should. Rates get hiked for two reasons:

      1) The economy is doing well. Not the case, it’s practically flatlining. GDP is falling behind inflation.

      2) Control inflation. Not the case, CPI is dropping fast. Raising rates would cause deflation if it happens soon. If you think housing affordability is choking the country, you’re in for big surprise when you find out deflation feels.

      The only reason would be home prices, and BoC’s internal readings actually show that homes are basically at the average of affordability. Toronto feels like the centre of the universe, but managing policy for the country to control poor municipal government doesn’t make sense. Mark my words, we’ll see a rate cut before a hike.

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