What Role Did The Setting Of Monetary Policy Play On Housing Market Developments?

The housing crisis of 2008 can trace its origins back to the stock market trends of the mid- to late 90 's. During a period of extended growth in the stock market, increased individual wealth among investors led to generalized increases in spending, including in the housing market. With more disposable income in the pockets of consumers, the demand for housing increased in the late 90 's. Due to the fact that homes are large projects and their construction takes a large amount of time, the supply of homes in the market is inelastic on the short term. Because of the fixed supply of homes, as per the law of supply, which

Although business leaders may not have a crystal ball to help them plan for the future, they do have access to a wide range of Federal Reserve publications that can help identify recent and current trends and what these economists believe will take place in the coming months. Given the lingering effects of the Great Recession of 2008 on the American economy today, identifying the future economic outlook for America using this type of freely available information therefore represents a timely and valuable enterprise. To this end, this paper provides a review of relevant publications to identify the Federal Reserve's current assessment of economic activity and financial markets, its current view about inflation and various monetary tools that have been used to stabilize the economic and prices in recent years. Finally, an analysis of the economic outlook for the next 12- to 18-month period is followed by a summary of the research and important findings in the conclusion.

It is clear that the economic policy in general and the monetary policy in particular should be concerned with the overall economic well-being. In this paper we propose to discuss this core topic. We will provide an overall picture of the functioning mechanism. In this regard, the discussion will develop around the governmental policies and of FED, and their scope on the free market. The argumentation will refer to the notion of common good and will try to establish if the measures applied by FED have fulfilled their intended purpose given the recent international financial crises of 2007.

The housing industry has been around for many years. It is an important industry and one that will always have a necessity to exist since it creates a product that is one of the essentials of human life, housing. Economics play an important role in the housing industry along with all other industries.

In fact, an article by Fazel Shokoofeh questions the effectiveness of monetary policy “with respect to affecting mortgage rate and thus investment and aggregate demand” (Shokoofeh

To begin, the article explains the Federal Reserve’s plan to take a careful approach to enacting contractionary monetary policies, policies used to decrease money supply, in the future. Last December the Federal Reserve raised the interest rates after they had been near zero for years to ensure inflation was kept in check and to promote economic growth. It appeared the economy would be in for another increase in the interest rates sometime this year, but the Feds have rethought that strategy. If the Federal Reserve were to continue to raise interest rates it would have short-run and long-run effects on the Money Market, Goods and Services Market, Planned Investment, Phillip Curve, and Aggregated Supply and Demand. These effects are aspects that have to be considered because they express and explain the effects the increase in interest rates has on the economy and explain if the Federal Reserve is enacting the correct policy to achieve their goal.

Macroeconomics is an excellent tool for the analysis of the housing industry as something like a capital good, as a home is considered to be, cannot easily be studied in a short-term platform. Real estate is a good that costs several times more than an average persons annual income, in the United States that number is typically 7 times as much, and in the United Kingdom that number is 14 times as much. Several factors of both supply and demand directly impact the housing market on a macroeconomic scale. (Business Economics, 1)

The Federal Reserve Act lays out the monetary policy that states that the Board of Governors and the Federal Open Market Committee should look for "to support effectively the aims of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates." The pre-requirement for highest sustainable growth and employment rates along with long term interest rates is price stability in the long run. Long run stable prices prevents merchandise, services, materials and labor from getting distorted by inflation and hence turn out to be good indicators to the proficient distribution of resources and consequently add to better and higher standards of living (Meyer, 2004). Moreover, price stability promotes saving and generates capital since the risk of inflation causing attrition of asset values is decreased and hence people are driven to save more and business tend to invest more.

Most people don’t understand Economic growth or what takes place in the economy with regard to inflation, unemployment, or interest rates. These things are all regulated by the central bank called the Federal Reserve System. The tope covered in this paper is the monetary policy which is the policy that decides if unemployment, interest, and inflation decreases or increases. The Monetary policy decides what price a person pays for an item at the store, how much interest a person will get charged on a loan for a car. This is something most people consider, most just look for the best price point or look where their money can go the farthest.

It seems hard to believe that over ten years have elapsed since the peak of the US housing market in the previous economic expansion. Residential construction as a percentage of real GDP reached a zenith of 6.2% in 2005 Q3. The ensuing contraction saw this share decline -60% to trough at 2.5% of GDP in 2010 Q3. The current economic expansion began in 2009 Q3, but the sheer magnitude of the collapse made it virtually impossible for any subsequent housing recovery to impart the same outsized contributions to headline GDP growth compared to the previous cycle. This has consequently played a significant role in restricting the ability of the economy to shift into a higher gear of growth during the current

It widely recognized that the monetary policy within a country should be primarily concerned with the pursuit of price stability. However, it is still not clear how this objective can be achieved most effectively. This debate remains unsettled, but an increasing number of countries have adopted inflation targeting as their monetary policy framework. (Dr E J van der Merwe, 2002) This topic of Inflation targeting is a subject which immediately conjures different perceptions from different people. Many feel that low inflation should be a main aim of monetary policy, while others (such as trade union activists) believe that a higher growth rate to stimulate jobs should be the main concern.

When researching past economic recoveries, the housing market is the one to drive the economy out of recession. That being said, this economic recession hasn’t had much of an impact until recently. America’s housing boom had a tremendous influence on the economy for its low prices and flow of new home construction.

The aim rationale behind reduced interest rate was to provoke recovery from the crisis. This targeted increase in consumers as well as firms and government spending since incentive to save had been eroded. This measure not only increased aggregate demand, it also aid commitment to new investments. Additionally, monthly cost of mortgage repayment was witnessed which in turn, provided more disposable income and make investment in property market more lucrative.

Theories about how the economy works and what will happen in the economy where there is monetary policy or fiscal policy intervention are appropriate in assisting policy-makers understand the possible implications of decisions they make or are under consideration. However, they are rarely complete models and often outcomes cannot be predicted. Reintroduction of a theory suggests that new evidence in support of the theory has been reported.

In the past 20 years, the central banks in most developed countries had successfully managed to control the inflation rate. However, the financial crisis 2008 has highlighted the links between financial market and policy. (Ravn, 2011) The topic I am going to discuss is the relationship between monetary policy and the stock market. What factors have influenced interest rate and how the policymakers should react to the change in stock market have driven the increasing attentions lately. Taylor Rule (2003) will be the core theory used to discuss the model tested. The interpretation of simple Taylor rule is very straightforward. According to the equationi_t=c+β(π_t-π_t^* )+γ(y_t-y_t^* )+ε_t , the policy will be mainly affected by inflation gap and output gap. (Woodford, 2001) The reason why Taylor uses interest rate to represent monetary policy is that the central bank likes to adjust interest rate as a tool to maintain the balance in the market. While, there is a strong debate about the other variables, in particular, stock price volatility. After taking asset price volatility into account, the augmented Taylor rule equation will be reformulated as:i_t=c+β(π_t-π_t^* )+γ(y_t-y_t^* )+∑_(k=1)^n▒〖δ_k s_(t-k)+ε_t 〗. It will influence the monetary policy while the importance of asset price in the market is very controversial. Scholars including Bernanke and Gertler question the importance of asset price in determining the monetary policy and claim that the influence