A Common Symptom of Asset Price Bubbles

Abstract

By reviewing the previous three asset bubble implosions, viz. (1) the “Lost Decade” of Japan in the 1980s; (2) the Asian Financial Crisis in Hong Kong in 1997; and (3) the Financial Tsunami in the USA in 2008, a common symptom of negative real interest rate is very clearly revealed before the implosion of the three bubbles, although the bubbles might have been caused by very different reasons. Credit expansion causing negative interest rate has long been recognized, but many studies focused on one bubble and tried to explain it by the unique events of the bubble. In this study, a holistic framework incorporating money and credit supply and demand, risk premium and expected income growth is put forward. It provides a more complete picture of the causes of asset price bubbles. This paper found a strong and negative relationship between housing return and real interest rate in the three economies. The three bubble bursts were coincided with a period of negative interest rate. It aims to argue that, asset bubble implosion may not be prevented nor accurately predicted though, there is a clear symptom in the markets.