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Journal of Finance Vol. 79 No. 3 2024

Monetary Policy and Asset Price Overshooting: A Rationale for the Wall/Main Street Disconnect

Ricardo J. Caballero1; Alp Simsek2,3,4

1 Yale University · 2 Center for Economic and Policy Research · 3 U.S. National Science Foundation · 4 Philips (Finland)

open access

Abstract

We analyze optimal monetary policy and its implications for asset prices when aggregate demand has inertia. If there is a negative output gap, the central bank optimally overshoots aggregate asset prices (above their steady‐state levels consistent with current potential output). Overshooting leads to a temporary disconnect between the performance of financial markets and the real economy, but accelerates the recovery. When there is a lower bound constraint on the discount rate, good macroeconomic news is better news for asset prices when the output gap is more negative. Finally, we document that during the COVID‐19 recovery, the policy‐induced overshooting was large.

DOI
10.1111/jofi.13343
Volume
79
Issue
3
Pages
1719-1753
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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