In the light of the recent financial crisis, the ECB has announced a slight shift in the reading of its monetary policy strategy and acknowledges that the case for a “leaning against the wind” strategy has strengthened. This implies that now, more than ever, the ECB is willing to dampen...

We analyze monetary conditions in US asset markets - corporate equity, real estate, Treasury bond and corporate & foreign bond - from a market specific perspective, proposing the concept of market leverage. Market leverage measures the average leverage of all asset holders in a particular asset...

The paper examines if US monetary policy implicitly responds to asset prices. Using real-time data and a GMM framework we estimate a Taylor-type rule with an asset cycle variable, which refers to real estate prices. To analyze the Fed's responses we describe real estate price movements by means...