500 companies (see Kwan 2003). Foreign investors’
eagerness to participate in the booming U.S. stock
market of the late 1990s drove up the value of the
dollar on foreign exchange markets, contributing to
a dramatic expansion of the U.S. current account deficit.
The deficit now exceeds 5% of GDP, implying that
the U.S. economy must draw in about $1.5 billion per
day from foreign investors to finance domestic spending.
Finally, the collapse in capital gains tax revenues
after the bubble burst has forced elected officials to
make difficult and unpopular choices to address the
resulting budget shortfalls.
Can bubbles be identified?
Despite the many problems propagated by bubbles,
some have argued that central banks should ignore
bubbles.Their argument consists of two parts: (1) central
banks cannot reliably determine if a run-up in
stock prices is actually a bubble until after it has burst;
(2) an interest rate hike of sufficient magnitude to
prick a suspected bubble would likely send the economy
into a recession, thereby sacrificing the benefits
of the boom that might otherwise continue.
To identify a bubble in real time, policymakers would
need to judge whether a valuation metric, such as the
price-earnings (P/E) ratio for the aggregate stock market,
has crossed into bubble territory. But rendering
such a judgment may be difficult in practice, particularly
if the bubble is triggered by investor overreaction to
an actual fundamental improvement in the underlying
economy. For example, a pickup in measured productivity
growth during the late 1990s appeared to offer
to some fundamental justification for the rise in the
market P/E ratio. Others have countered that the difficulties
in identifying bubbles do not justify ignoring
them altogether. Central banks routinely apply judgment
to a whole host of issues affecting monetary policy.
One example is the size of the so-called “output gap,”
defined as the difference between actual GDP and
potential GDP. The output gap is notoriously difficult
to measure in real time, yet it remains an important
input to central bank inflation forecasts.
Regarding the second part of the argument, some
worry that a policy designed to prick an emerging
bubble could have unintended negative consequences.
Opponents of bubble-popping often cite the example
of the Great Depression, claiming it was exacerbated
by the Fed’s overzealous attempts to rein in speculative
stock market excesses. A counterargument is
provided by Borio and Lowe (2002), who perform an
exhaustive historical study of financial market bubbles
in many countries.According to the authors, opponents
of bubble-popping fail to take sufficient account of
the asymmetric nature of the costs of policy errors
when faced with a suspected bubble:“If the economy
is indeed robust and the boom is sustainable, actions
500 companies (see Kwan 2003). Foreign investors’
eagerness to participate in the booming U.S. stock
market of the late 1990s drove up the value of the
dollar on foreign exchange markets, contributing to
a dramatic expansion of the U.S. current account deficit.
The deficit now exceeds 5% of GDP, implying that
the U.S. economy must draw in about $1.5 billion per
day from foreign investors to finance domestic spending.
Finally, the collapse in capital gains tax revenues
after the bubble burst has forced elected officials to
make difficult and unpopular choices to address the
resulting budget shortfalls.
Can bubbles be identified?
Despite the many problems propagated by bubbles,
some have argued that central banks should ignore
bubbles.Their argument consists of two parts: (1) central
banks cannot reliably determine if a run-up in
stock prices is actually a bubble until after it has burst;
(2) an interest rate hike of sufficient magnitude to
prick a suspected bubble would likely send the economy
into a recession, thereby sacrificing the benefits
of the boom that might otherwise continue.
To identify a bubble in real time, policymakers would
need to judge whether a valuation metric, such as the
price-earnings (P/E) ratio for the aggregate stock market,
has crossed into bubble territory. But rendering
such a judgment may be difficult in practice, particularly
if the bubble is triggered by investor overreaction to
an actual fundamental improvement in the underlying
economy. For example, a pickup in measured productivity
growth during the late 1990s appeared to offer
to some fundamental justification for the rise in the
market P/E ratio. Others have countered that the difficulties
in identifying bubbles do not justify ignoring
them altogether. Central banks routinely apply judgment
to a whole host of issues affecting monetary policy.
One example is the size of the so-called “output gap,”
defined as the difference between actual GDP and
potential GDP. The output gap is notoriously difficult
to measure in real time, yet it remains an important
input to central bank inflation forecasts.
Regarding the second part of the argument, some
worry that a policy designed to prick an emerging
bubble could have unintended negative consequences.
Opponents of bubble-popping often cite the example
of the Great Depression, claiming it was exacerbated
by the Fed’s overzealous attempts to rein in speculative
stock market excesses. A counterargument is
provided by Borio and Lowe (2002), who perform an
exhaustive historical study of financial market bubbles
in many countries.According to the authors, opponents
of bubble-popping fail to take sufficient account of
the asymmetric nature of the costs of policy errors
when faced with a suspected bubble:“If the economy
is indeed robust and the boom is sustainable, actions
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