Asset Prices and Monetary Policy

In this paper, the authors analyse the role of asset market prices in the formation of monetary policy with particular reference to equity markets, a concern for policy makers in the late 1990s. While asset prices have potentially valuable supplementary information for monetary policy makers, they are hard to interpret because of their inherent volatility. Dilemmas arise when asset price movements are large and there are no signs of inflation pressures. Waiting until speculative pressures run their course risks both contagion to other sectors and assets and potentially damaging fallout from a correction. Tightening monetary policy in these circumstances (perhaps to avoid potential fallout on other sectors) would be difficult to justify to the public. In the current situation of low inflation (late 1997), various valuation measures suggest that equity markets are over-valued in the United States, Canada and Italy. Other countries are either at more intermediate positions ...