Recoveries that occur in the absence of credit growth are often dubbed miracles and named after mythical creatures. Yet these are not rare animals, and are not always miracles. About one out of five recoveries is "creditless", and average growth during these episodes is about a third lower than...

Credit is key to support healthy and sustainable economic growth but excess aggregate credit growth can signal the build-up of imbalances and lead to systemic financial crisis. Hence, monitoring the credit cycle is key to identifying vulnerabilities, particularly in emerging markets, which tend...

This paper presents a new dataset on the dynamics of non-performing loans (NPLs) during 88 banking crises since 1990. The data show similarities across crises during NPL build-ups but less so during NPL resolutions. We find a close relationship between NPL problems-elevated and unresolved...

This paper studies episodes in which aggregate bank credit contracts alongside expanding economic activity-credit reversals. Using data for 179 countries during 1960-2017, the paper finds that reversals are a relatively common phenomenon--on average, they occur every five years. By comparison,...

Can the upturns and downturns in financial variables serve as early warning indicators of banking crises? Using data from 59 advanced and emerging economies, we show that financial overheating can be detected in real time. Equity prices and output gap are the best leading indicators in advanced...

This paper uses a general equilibrium model to examine the central role played by commercial banks in intermediating and amplifying the capital flow shocks to the local economy in the 1997 Asia financial crisis. It finds that a sudden stop of capital inflows affects the equilibrium credit supply...

We provide a comprehensive empirical characterization of the linkages between key macroeconomic and financial variables around business and financial cycles for 21 OECD countries over the period 1960–2007. In particular, we analyze the implications of 122 recessions, 112 (28) credit...

At the height of the Great Depression a number of leading U.S. economists advanced a proposal for monetary reform that became known as the Chicago Plan. It envisaged the separation of the monetary and credit functions of the banking system, by requiring 100% reserve backing for deposits. Irving...