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According to conventional wisdom, inflation-targeting central banks shouldrespond to asset price booms only insofar as the latter signal current orfuture changes in the target variables, inflation and the output gap. In manycases this strategy seems to be consistent with benign neglect, in the sensethat central banks do not react pre-emptively in the boom phase but ratherease monetary policy reactively if and when an asset price crash occurs.Several arguments have been put forward to justify this policy approach.First, doubts have been raised concerning central bankers’ abilities toidentify bubbles or high-cost asset price booms; that is, booms that arefollowed by severe consequences for the target variables, ex ante (Bernankeand Gertler 2001). Second, monetary policy is often regarded as a blunt tool.Given the complex nature of the transmission mechanism, the monetarypolicy necessary to curb an asset price boom is open to debate: a smallincrease in interest rates may have no significant impact on asset prices, oreven lead to a further boost in asset prices, while a strong interest rate hikemay be a trigger for an economic downturn (Bernanke and Gertler 1999;Greenspan 2002). Third, monetary policy reactions to asset price booms maylead to public confusion regarding the objectives of monetary policy andmay undermine the central banker’s credibility (Borio and Lowe 2002).
This conventional view, however, has not remained undisputed. Cecchettiet al. (2000, 2003) challenge the view that monetary policy should ignoreasset price movements unless they signal changes in the central bank’s targetvariables. They maintain that monetary policy should follow a proactivestrategy by including asset prices in the Taylor rule. Reacting to asset pricemisalignments (that is, to the bubble component of asset price movements)may improve macroeconomic performance. This necessarily requires thatmonetary policy is able to detect bubbles. While many observers aresceptical about that (see Bernanke and Gertler 1999; Cogley 1999; Dornbusch1999), Cecchetti et al. (2000, 2003) argue that, despite all difficulties,identifying large misalignments is no more difficult than identifying othercomponents of the Taylor rule, such as potential ouput.
Further objections to this conventional wisdom are raised by Bordo andJeanne (2002a, b). Dealing mainly with the first two of the above arguments,Bordo and Jeanne (BJ) offer new arguments in favour of a proactivemonetary policy response to asset price booms. They show that benignneglect of asset price inflation may be dominated by a proactive monetarypolicy that responds to an asset price boom by pre-emptively raising interestrates. Benign neglect in the boom phase entails the risk that the boom will befollowed by a bust. Falling asset prices reduce creditors’ collateral base and,if sufficiently severe, lead to a credit crunch and thus a sharp reduction inreal economic performance. A pre-emptive monetary restriction (accordingto the proactive strategy), however, may avert this crisis scenario in the firstplace by deterring firms from accumulating too much debt. The preconditionsfor a slowdown in real activity in the aftermath of an asset pricecollapse are thus eliminated. Hence, a proactive monetary policy strategycan be understood as insurance against the risk of an asset price collapse andthe subsequent macroeconomic decline. But the required interest rate hike isassociated with immediate costs in terms of output losses and a suboptimallylow inflation rate. In general, central banks have to trade offcurrent and future losses of the different policy options when asset pricessoar. BJ show that the optimal policy reaction to asset price booms dependson the economic conditions in a complex, non-linear way.
In this paper we extend the BJ model in several directions.While BJ comparea proactive strategy with benign neglect by using a reduced-form model that isindependent of the private sector’s forward-looking behaviour, we adheremore closely to the New Keynesian approach to monetary policy and allow forforward-looking expectations on the supply and demand side of the economy.Furthermore, our focus is not only on the supply-side effects of an asset pricebust but also on its potential impact on aggregate demand. We first show thatduring an asset price boom, a ‘benign neglect’ policy option, in the sense ofcompletely disregarding the possibility of an asset price collapse, is generallynot optimal. Even a purely reactive monetary policy responds to the possibleoccurrence of an asset price crash ex ante. The reason for this monetary policyadjustment in the boom phase, however, is not the attempt to counter proactivelythe occurrence of an asset price bust. Rather, the policy maker aims atreacting optimally to changes in the private sector’s expectations. While thedirection of the nominal interest rate adjustment is not unambiguous, the realinterest rate will unambiguously decline. Thus, in our model, following thereactive policy approach is not to be equated with a policy of ‘benign neglect’.This stands in sharp contrast to the model by BJ and to the view of monetarypolicy practitioners as judged by their statements.
In a recent paper, Gruen et al. (2005) remain sceptical about a proactivemonetary policy. Using a backward-looking model, they stress the role oftime lags in monetary policy. The optimal monetary policy in the presence ofasset price bubbles is shown to depend on the stochastic properties of thebubble. Private sector expectations are not referred to explicitly in theirmodel. In contrast, we underline the importance of the private sector’sforward-looking expectations for monetary policy during asset price booms.This gives rise to an expectations channel that is absent in backward-lookingmodels. We argue that the welfare losses of the reactive strategy increasewhen forward-looking expectations are taken into account, while the welfareimplications of a proactive strategy are not affected by the introduction offorward-looking behaviour. Hence, the incorporation of forward-lookingexpectations strengthens the case for a proactive strategy and involves morebad news for benign neglect.

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