Asset Price Misalignments and the Role of Money and Credit

Abstract

This paper contributes to the literature on the properties of money and credit indicators for detecting asset price misalignments. After a review of the evidence in the literature on this issue, the paper discusses the approaches that can be considered to detect asset price busts. Considering a sample of 17 OECD industrialised countries and the euro area over the period 1969 Q1 - 2008 Q3, we construct an asset price composite indicator which incorporates developments in both the stock price and house price markets and propose a criterion to identify the periods characterised by asset price busts, which has been applied in the currency crisis literature. The empirical analysis is based on a pooled probit-type approach with several macroeconomic monetary, financial and real variables. According to statistical tests, credit aggregates (either in terms of annual changes or growth gap), changes in nominal long-term interest rates and investment-to-GDP ratio combined with either house prices or stock prices dynamics turn out to be the best indicators which help to forecast asset price busts up to 8 quarters ahead.

Keywords: Asset prices, house prices, stock prices, financial crisis, asset price busts, probit models, monetary aggregates, credit aggregates

JEL Classification: E37, E44, E51