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...

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 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...

Do markets correct individual behavioral biases? In an experimental asset market, we compare the outcomes of a standard market economy to those of a an island economy that removed market interactions. We observe asset price bubbles in the market economy while prices are stable in the island...

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...

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 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...

The question of whether monetary policy should target asset prices remains a contentious issue. Prior to the 2007/08 financial crisis, central banks opted for a wait-and-see approach, remaining passive during the build-up of asset price bubbles but actively seeking to stabilize prices and output...

After a period of stagnation that lasted for almost two decades, German house prices began to grow at an accelerated pace since late 2010. Real house prices that even had been declining in 2000-2008 started to climb up steeply from the second half of 2010, followed by a recovery of construction...

I study economies where banks do not fully internalize the social costs of default, which distorts their lending decisions. In all these economies, a common general equilibrium effect leads to aggregate over-investment. As a result, under laissez-faire, crises are too frequent and too costly...