Leaning Against Housing Prices as Robustly Optimal Monetary Policy

Klaus Adam and Michael Woodford

CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series from University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany

Abstract: We analytically characterize optimal monetary policy for an augmented New Key- nesian model with a housing sector. In a setting where the private sector has rational expectations about future housing prices and inflation, optimal monetary policy can be characterized without making reference to housing price developments: commitment to a 'target criterion' that refers to inflation and the output gap only is optimal, as in the standard model without a housing sector. When the policymaker is concerned with po- tential departures of private sector expectations from rational ones and seeks to choose a policy that is robust against such possible departures, then the optimal target criterion must also depend on housing prices. In the empirically realistic case where housing is subsidized and where monopoly power causes output to fall short of its optimal level, the robustly optimal target criterion requires the central bank to 'lean against' housing prices: following unexpected housing price increases, policy should adopt a stance that is projected to undershoot its normal targets for inflation and the output gap, and simi- larly aim to overshoot those targets in the case of unexpected declines in housing prices. The robustly optimal target criterion does not require that policy distinguish between 'fundamental' and 'non-fundamental' movements in housing prices.

JEL-codes: D81 D84 E52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 65
Date: 2018-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba, nep-dge, nep-mac and nep-mon
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Working Paper: Leaning Against Housing Prices as Robustly Optimal Monetary Policy (2018)
Working Paper: Leaning Against Housing Prices as Robustly Optimal Monetary Policy (2018)
Working Paper: Leaning against housing prices as robustly optimal monetary policy (2018)
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