IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/jeurec/v16y2018i5p1350-1393..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Leaning Against the Credit Cycle

Author

Listed:
  • Paolo Gelain
  • Kevin J Lansing
  • Gisle James Natvik

Abstract

How should a central bank act to stabilize the ratio of debt over gross domestic product (GDP)? We show how the persistent nature of household debt shapes the answer to this question. In environments where households repay mortgages gradually, surprise interest hikes only weakly influence household debt, and tend to increase debt-to-GDP in the short run while reducing it in the medium run. Interest rate rules with a positive weight on debt-to-GDP cause indeterminacy. Compared to inflation targeting, debt-to-GDP stabilization calls for a more expansionary policy when debt-to-GDP is high, so as to deflate the debt burden through inflation and output growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Paolo Gelain & Kevin J Lansing & Gisle James Natvik, 2018. "Leaning Against the Credit Cycle," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(5), pages 1350-1393.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jeurec:v:16:y:2018:i:5:p:1350-1393.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jeea/jvx043
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hui Chen & Michael Michaux & Nikolai Roussanov, 2020. "Houses as ATMs: Mortgage Refinancing and Macroeconomic Uncertainty," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(1), pages 323-375, February.
    2. Benhabib, Jess & Eusepi, Stefano, 2005. "The design of monetary and fiscal policy: A global perspective," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 123(1), pages 40-73, July.
    3. Bullard, James & Mitra, Kaushik, 2002. "Learning about monetary policy rules," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 1105-1129, September.
    4. Carlos Garriga & Finn E. Kydland & Roman Šustek, 2017. "Mortgages and Monetary Policy," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(10), pages 3337-3375.
    5. Alpanda, Sami & Zubairy, Sarah, 2017. "Addressing household indebtedness: Monetary, fiscal or macroprudential policy?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 47-73.
    6. Monacelli, Tommaso, 2009. "New Keynesian models, durable goods, and collateral constraints," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 242-254, March.
    7. Matteo Iacoviello, 2015. "Financial Business Cycles," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 18(1), pages 140-164, January.
    8. Lars E. O. Svensson, 2003. "What Is Wrong with Taylor Rules? Using Judgment in Monetary Policy through Targeting Rules," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(2), pages 426-477, June.
    9. Margarita Rubio, 2011. "Fixed- and Variable-Rate Mortgages, Business Cycles, and Monetary Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(4), pages 657-688, June.
    10. Alessandro Calza & Tommaso Monacelli & Livio Stracca, 2013. "Housing Finance And Monetary Policy," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11, pages 101-122, January.
    11. Iacoviello, Matteo & Pavan, Marina, 2013. "Housing and debt over the life cycle and over the business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 221-238.
    12. Gregory H. Bauer & Eleonora Granziera, 2017. "Monetary Policy, Private Debt, and Financial Stability Risks," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 13(3), pages 337-373, September.
    13. Bernanke, Ben & Gertler, Mark, 1989. "Agency Costs, Net Worth, and Business Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(1), pages 14-31, March.
    14. Matteo Iacoviello & Stefano Neri, 2010. "Housing Market Spillovers: Evidence from an Estimated DSGE Model," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 125-164, April.
    15. Andrés, Javier & Arce, Óscar & Thomas, Carlos, 2017. "Structural reforms in a debt overhang," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 15-34.
    16. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1983. "Staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 383-398, September.
    17. Vasco Cúrdia & Michael Woodford, 2010. "Credit Spreads and Monetary Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(s1), pages 3-35, September.
    18. Jordi Gal?, 2014. "Monetary Policy and Rational Asset Price Bubbles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(3), pages 721-752, March.
    19. Matteo Iacoviello, 2005. "House Prices, Borrowing Constraints, and Monetary Policy in the Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 739-764, June.
    20. Carlstrom, Charles T. & Fuerst, Timothy S., 2005. "Investment and interest rate policy: a discrete time analysis," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 123(1), pages 4-20, July.
    21. Mathias Drehmann & Claudio Borio & Kostas Tsatsaronis, 2012. "Characterising the financial cycle: don't lose sight of the medium term!," BIS Working Papers 380, Bank for International Settlements.
    22. Jeffrey R. Campbell & Zvi Hercowitz, 2005. "The Role of Collateralized Household Debt in Macroeconomic Stabilization," NBER Working Papers 11330, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    23. Roman Sustek & Peter Rupert & Finn Kydland, 2012. "Housing Dynamics," 2012 Meeting Papers 315, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    24. Finn E. Kydland & Peter Rupert & Roman Šustek, 2016. "Housing Dynamics Over The Business Cycle," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 57, pages 1149-1177, November.
    25. Paolo Gelain & Kevin J. Lansing & Gisle J. Natvik, 2018. "Explaining the Boom–Bust Cycle in the U.S. Housing Market: A Reverse‐Engineering Approach," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 50(8), pages 1751-1783, December.
    26. Chiara Forlati & Luisa Lambertini, 2011. "Risky Mortgages in a DSGE Model," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 7(1), pages 285-335, March.
    27. repec:ucp:bkecon:9780226081946 is not listed on IDEAS
    28. Michael Woodford, 2001. "The Taylor Rule and Optimal Monetary Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 232-237, May.
    29. Sveen, Tommy & Weinke, Lutz, 2005. "New perspectives on capital, sticky prices, and the Taylor principle," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 123(1), pages 21-39, July.
    30. Frank Smets & Raf Wouters, 2003. "An Estimated Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model of the Euro Area," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1123-1175, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Piazzesi, M. & Schneider, M., 2016. "Housing and Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1547-1640, Elsevier.
    2. Bekiros, Stelios & Nilavongse, Rachatar & Uddin, Gazi Salah, 2020. "Expectation-driven house prices and debt defaults: The effectiveness of monetary and macroprudential policies," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    3. Pintus, Patrick A. & Wen, Yi & Xing, Xiaochuan, 2022. "The inverted leading indicator property and redistribution effect of the interest rate," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    4. Kristina Bluwstein & Michał Brzoza‐Brzezina & Paolo Gelain & Marcin Kolasa, 2020. "Multiperiod Loans, Occasionally Binding Constraints, and Monetary Policy: A Quantitative Evaluation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 52(7), pages 1691-1718, October.
    5. Mauricio Arango, 2014. "Collateralized assets prices and monetary policy," Documentos de Discusión FLAR 11853, Fondo Latino Americano de Reservas - FLAR.
    6. Matthieu Darracq Paries, 2018. "Financial frictions and monetary policy conduct," Erudite Ph.D Dissertations, Erudite, number ph18-01 edited by Ferhat Mihoubi.
    7. Eric Mayer & Johannes Gareis, 2013. "What Drives Ireland’s Housing Market? A Bayesian DSGE Approach," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 24(5), pages 919-961, November.
    8. Pietrunti, Mario & Signoretti, Federico M., 2020. "Unconventional monetary policy and household debt: The role of cash-flow effects," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    9. Gabriel Bruneau & Ian Christensen & Césaire Meh, 2018. "Housing market dynamics and macroprudential policies," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(3), pages 864-900, August.
    10. Alessandro Notarpietro & Stefano Siviero, 2015. "Optimal Monetary Policy Rules and House Prices: The Role of Financial Frictions," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(S1), pages 383-410, March.
    11. Kannan Prakash & Rabanal Pau & Scott Alasdair M., 2012. "Monetary and Macroprudential Policy Rules in a Model with House Price Booms," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-44, June.
    12. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    13. Górajski, Mariusz & Kuchta, Zbigniew, 2023. "Coordination and non-coordination risks of monetary and macroprudential authorities: A robust welfare analysis," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    14. Alpanda, Sami & Zubairy, Sarah, 2017. "Addressing household indebtedness: Monetary, fiscal or macroprudential policy?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 47-73.
    15. Rubio, Margarita, 2014. "Housing-market heterogeneity in a monetary union," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 163-184.
    16. Dominic Quint & Pau Rabanal, 2014. "Monetary and Macroprudential Policy in an Estimated DSGE Model of the Euro Area," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 10(2), pages 169-236, June.
    17. Batini, Nicoletta & Melina, Giovanni & Villa, Stefania, 2019. "Fiscal buffers, private debt, and recession: The good, the bad and the ugly," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    18. Xiao, Wei, 2008. "Increasing Returns And The Design Of Interest Rate Rules," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(1), pages 22-49, February.
    19. Guerrieri, V. & Uhlig, H., 2016. "Housing and Credit Markets," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1427-1496, Elsevier.
    20. Bofinger, Peter & Debes, Sebastian & Gareis, Johannes & Mayer, Eric, 2013. "Monetary policy transmission in a model with animal spirits and house price booms and busts," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 2862-2881.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:jeurec:v:16:y:2018:i:5:p:1350-1393.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/jeea .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.