We take a closer look at the components of the aggregate asset-price index and compare their evolution around this U.K. cyclical peak to their average evolution during all recessions excluding our three asset-price-bust episodes (figure 4). Equity prices registered a remarkably sharp decline in this episode. But arguably a more distinctive characteristic of this asset-price boom-bust episode is the swing in real estate prices.
In the United States, roughly 80 percent of Americans across the ideological spectrum see inequality as a moderately big or very big problem. 1 Economic inequality has long been of interest within the Federal Reserve System.