Beyond bubbles : the role of asset prices in early-warning indicators

Se hace uso de información sobre crédito, inversión y precios de los activos financieros más relevantes con el objetivo de construir indicadores de alerta temprana, para el estudio de la estabilidad financiera.Asset price bubbles are amongst the most talked-about yet misunderstood topics in economics. Theoretical researchers debate between rational, nonrational or even non-existent bubbles, while empiricists tackle the issue with state-of-the-art econometric tools yielding mixed results. A bubble is usually defined as the component of asset prices that cannot be accounted for by fundamentals1. A rational bubble arises when agents are willing to pay a higher price than the \fundamental price" because they believe that they can sell the asset at an even higher price in the future (Gurkaynak (2005)). A nonrational bubble is defined as a rapid upward price movement, based on exaggerated beliefs about future outcomes (e.g. company earnings or the impact of a new technology), followed by a collapse (Meltzer (2003))