Asset Price Regulators Unite: You Have Macroeconomic Stability to Win and the Microeconomic Losses are Second-order

The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) has rekindled debate about the desirability of governmental interference in asset markets – either through the operation of policy levers, or, through the chosen institutional setup. In this paper we quantify economic costs due to mispricing of real assets in the USAGE model of the United States. The microeconomic costs of misallocated capital are second-order small. The model suggests that regulators (or central banks) who restrain the volatility of asset prices do so without incurring large economic costs.