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Economic Commentary

Why Policymakers Might Care About Stock Market Bubbles

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This Commentary makes a case for Fed action in the event of a stock market bubble. Because stock market prices serve as a signal to business managers to invest, bubbles can mislead managers into investing when iti s not profitable. The overinvestment, which becomes apparent after the bubble bursts, can lead to a period of low investment, which can cause a recession. Policymakers may wish to step in to end a bubble before stock prices get too far out of line relative to their fundamentals.

05.15.2005EC 5/15/2005

The views authors express in Economic Commentary are theirs and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland or the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The series editor is Tasia Hane. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. This paper and its data are subject to revision; please visit clevelandfed.org for updates.

Suggested Citation

Gomme, Paul. 2005. “Why Policymakers Might Care About Stock Market Bubbles.” Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Commentary 5/15/2005.

This work by Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International