As it has proved difficult to explain the recent US house price boom on the basis of fundamentals, many observers have emphasised the role of speculation. This kind of argument is, however, indirect, as speculation is treated as a deviation from a benchmark. Our paper identifies house price...

Bubbles are recurrent events, which contribute to both macroeconomic and employment volatility. We introduce stochastic bubbles in the standard search-and matching model of the labor market. The economy alternates between latent and bubbly states, each being associated with a distinct solution...

It is well known that rational bubbles can be sustained in balanced growth path of a deterministic economy when the return to capital r is equal to the growth rate g. When there is a lack of stores of value, bubbles can implement an efficient allocation. This paper considers a world where r...

This paper explores the significance of overoptimism on house price developments in Denmark. The results indicate that house price developments historically have been partly driven by sentiments decoupled from underlying economic fundamentals, especially during strong house price booms. This...

We propose that heterogeneous asset trading behavior is the result of two distinct, non-convertible mental dimensions: analytical ("quantitative") capability and mentalizing ("perspective-taking") capability. We develop a framework of mental capabilities that yields testable predictions about...

The paper argues that persistent current account surpluses and increasing foreign currency-denominated asset positions constitute long-term appreciation expectations on yuan and yen, which have made China and Japan vulnerable to U.S. interest rate cuts and appreciation expectation shocks. For...

This paper suggests that non-fundamental component in asset prices is one of the drivers of financial and credit cycle. Presented model builds on the financial accelerator literature by including a stock market where limitedly-liable investors trade stocks of productive firms with stochastic...

This paper develops an agent-based model(ABM) to replicate financial instability, such as bubbles and crashes in asset markets, by introducing a simple idea of ‘heterogeneous expectation’ by which agents have different expectations about a ‘tipping point’ where they expect the price to...

Policy-makers are currently debating whether asset-pricing dynamics can, or should, be managed in the public interest. This initiative delves into the mechanisms of asset pricing to learn how to detect when and why bubbles emerge and how consequences can be mitigated. In its 2nd year, the...

The paper investigates in how far lax monetary policy (defined as deviations from prescriptive monetary policy rules or past trends) and/or financial innovation can be seen as a cause for housing price bubbles in industrialized countries. From a theoretical perspective, it is found that there...

Bubbles are omnipresent in lab experiments with asset markets. Most of these experiments were conducted in environments with only human traders. Today markets are substantially determined by algorithmic traders. Here we use a laboratory experiment to measure changes of human trading behavior if...

The thesis studies three pivotal episodes in the evolution of what became the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-09. These three events - the collapse of the US housing market, the breakdown of the repo money market, and the banking crash - are indispensable for understanding some of the key...

In distilling a vast literature spanning the rational---irrational divide, this paper offers reflections on why asset bubbles continue to threaten economic stability despite financial markets becoming more informationally-efficient, more complete, and more heavily influenced by sophisticated...

This paper delves into the recent events that led to the formation of the housing bubble in Spain and the resulting structural change that is arguably needed to put the economy back into the right track. For this purpose we calibrate a model with different equilibria descriptive of the labor...

In this paper, we draw upon the close relationship between statistical physics and mathematical finance to develop a suite of models for financial bubbles and crashes. By modifying previous approaches, we are able to derive novel analytical formulae for evaluation problems and for the expected...

Bubbles are omnipresent in lab experiments with asset markets. But these experiments were (mostly) conducted in environments with only human traders. Today markets are substantially determined by algorithmic traders. Here we use a laboratory experiment to measure human trading behaviour changes...

In the light of the unconventional monetary policies conducted by the majority of large central banks around the world, there is an intense debate about their potential impact on the prices of capital assets. Particularly in Germany, skepticism about the sustainability of the recent policy by...