Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/53776 
Year of Publication: 
2007
Series/Report no.: 
Bank of Canada Working Paper No. 2007-13
Publisher: 
Bank of Canada, Ottawa
Abstract: 
The stochastic simulation model suggested by Bolder (2003) for the analysis of the federal government's debt-management strategy provides a wide variety of useful information. It does not, however, assist in determining an optimal debt-management strategy for the government in its current form. Including optimization in the debt-strategy model would be useful, since it could substantially broaden the range of policy questions that can be addressed. Finding such an optimal strategy is nonetheless complicated by two challenges. First, performing optimization with traditional techniques in a simulation setting is computationally intractable. Second, it is necessary to define precisely what one means by an optimal” debt strategy. The authors detail a possible approach for addressing these two challenges. They address the first challenge by approximating the numerically computed objective function using a function-approximation technique. They consider the use of ordinary least squares, kernel regression, multivariate adaptive regression splines, and projection-pursuit regressions as approximation algorithms. The second challenge is addressed by proposing a wide range of possible government objective functions and examining them in the context of an illustrative example. The authors' view is that the approach permits debt and fiscal managers to address a number of policy questions that could not be fully addressed with the current stochastic simulation engine.
Subjects: 
Debt management
Econometric and statistical method s
Fiscal policy
Financial markets
JEL: 
C0
C14
C15
C51
C52
C61
C65
E6
G1
H63
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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