Monetary policy and asset prices: to respond or not?

Abstract

We investigate whether there is a case for asset prices in interest rates rules within a small econometric model of the Norwegian economy, modelling the interdependence of the real economy, credit and three classes of asset prices: housing prices, equity prices and the nominal exchange rate. We compare the performance of simple interest rate rules that allow for additional response to movements in asset prices to the performance of more standard monetary policy rules. We find that including housing and/or equity prices in the policy rules improve macroeconomic performance in terms of both nominal and real economic stability. In contrast, responding to exchange rate fluctuations seems less effective to this end, mainly because the instrument must be used quite actively, which contributes to higher volatility in general. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.