House Prices and the Macroeconomy: Implications for Banking and Price Stability

Charles Goodhart · Boris Hofmann

Dec 2006 · OUP Oxford

About this ebook

House price bubbles, and their aftermath, have become a focus of macro-economic policy concern in most developed countries. This book elucidates the two-way relationship between house-price fluctuations and economic fundamentals. Housing has many features which make it distinct from other assets, like equity. Real estate is not only an asset but also a durable consumption good for households, providing shelter and other housing services. As a result, a house is often the largest and most important asset of households and therefore accounts for a major share of household wealth. Similarly a large share of bank assets is tied to housing values. House price fluctuations may, therefore, have a major effect on economic activity and the soundness of the financial system. Following an introductory chapter, the book is structured into three parts. The first demonstrates the importance of house prices as determinants or indicators of inflation and economic activity. The second focuses on the inter-relationships between bank credit extension and housing prices, and how bubbles can lead to financial crises. The third discusses resultant public policy issues, such as whether, and how, to include housing prices in a general inflation index, and how to restrain the housing/bank credit cycle.

About the author

Charles Goodhart, CBE, FBA is the Norman Sosnow Professor of Banking and Finance at the London School of Economics and is Programme Director of the Financial Markets Group. Before joining the London School of Economics in 1985, he worked at the Bank of England for seventeen years as a monetary adviser, becoming a Chief Adviser in 1980. During 1986, Prof. Goodhart helped to found, with Mervyn King, the Financial Markets Group at London School of Economics. In 1997, he was appointed one of the outside independent members of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee until May 2000. He has taught at Cambridge University and the London School of Economics. Boris Hofmann is an economist at the Deutsche Bundesbank in Frankfurt am Main and a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for European Integration Studies (ZEI) of the University of Bonn. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Bonn and has written and published a number of articles on topics in monetary and financial economics.