This paper argues that the stock market crash of 2008, triggered by a collapse in house prices, caused the Great Recession. The paper has three parts. First, it provides evidence of a high correlation between the value of the stock market and the unemployment rate in U.S. data since 1929....

Periods of high indebtedness have historically been associated with a rising incidence of default or restructuring of public and private debts. Sometimes the debt restructuring is more subtle and takes the form of 'financial repression'. Consistent negative real interest rates are equivalent to...

A fall in house prices due to a change in fundamental value redistributes wealth from those long housing (for whom the fundamental value of the house they own exceeds the present discounted value of their planned future consumption of housing services) to those short housing. In a representative...

This paper investigates, in a simplified macro context, the joint determination of the (incorrect) perceived model and the equilibrium. I assume that the model is designed by a self-interested economist who knows the true structural model, but reports a distorted one so as to influence outcomes....

This paper studies the trade-offs that an expert with ideological biases faces in designing his model. I assume the perceived model must be autocoherent, in that its use by all agents delivers a self-concerming equilibrium. The exercise is carried in the context of a simplified AS-AD model,...

When policymakers and private agents use models, the economists who design the model have an incentive to alter it in order influence outcomes in a fashion consistent with their own preferences. I discuss some consequences of the existence of such ideological bias. In particular, I analyze the...

An autocoherent model is a model which is validated by the data if people use it to form their expectations. A structural model may be incorrect but autocoherent, thus supporting a self-confirming equilibrium. This paper explores some mathematical properties of autocoherent models. The first...

We examine whether credit contributes to business cycle fluctuations by directly affecting consumption rather than through the now well-understood investment channel. Examining UK data we argue that consumers face a rising interest rate schedule whereby additional borrowing leads to higher...

Why is inflation so much lower and at the same time more stable in developed economies in the 1990s, compared with the 1970s? This paper suggests that the United Kingdom, United States and other countries may have escaped from a volatile inflation equilibrium. Our argument builds on the story...

We study liquidity trap dynamics driven by nonfundamental shifts in expectations in a model with nominal rigidities, housing, credit frictions and a Taylor rule. Highly leveraged borrowing through nominal debt backed by real estate collateral greatly magnifies the decline in output and house...