CFCM 13/04: Macroprudential and Monetary Policies: Implications for Financial Stability and Welfare

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze the implications of macroprudential and monetary policies for business cycles, welfare, and financial stability. We consider a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with housing and collateral constraints. A macroprudential rule on the loan-to-value ratio (LTV), which responds to output and house price deviations, interacts with a traditional Taylor rule for monetary policy. From a positive perspective, introducing a macroprudential tool mitigates the effects of booms in the economy by restricting credit. However, monetary and macroprudential policies may enter in conflict when shocks come from the supply-side of the economy. From a normative point of view, results show that the introduction of this macroprudential measure is welfare improving. Then, we calculate the combination of policy parameters that maximizes welfare and find that the optimal LTV rule should respond relatively more aggressively to house prices than to output deviations. Finally, we study the efficiency of the policy mix. We propose a tool that includes not only the variability of output and inflation but also the variability of borrowing, to capture the effects of policies on financial stability: a three-dimensional policy frontier (3DPF). We find that both policies acting together unambiguously improves the stability of the system.

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Forthcoming in Journal of Banking and Finance, 2014

Authors

Margarita Rubio and José A Carrasco-Gallego

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