摘要：Is housing the business cycle, as Leamer
says? In their fascinating paper, Jarocin¡äski
and Smets¡¯s (2008) careful analysis suggests
that the answer is no. Very briefly, they
show that the recent U.S. housing boom is
explained by a combination of increases in housing
demand and loose monetary policy. However,
once they adequately account for the myriad of
dynamic interactions, they find that housing
demand shocks have a very limited impact on
the overall volatility of real growth and inflation.
And, finally, Jarocin¡äski and Smets use their estimates
to suggest that, since 2000, monetary conditions
have been close to neutral.
