This paper exploits the Financial Accounts of the United States to derive long time series of bank and nonbank credit to different sectors, and to examine the cyclical behavior of these series in relation to (i) the long-term business cycle, (ii) recessions and recoveries, and (iii) systemic...

Housing cycles and their impact on the financial system and the macroeconomy have become the center of attention following the global financial crisis. This paper documents the characteristics of housing cycles in a large set of countries, and examines the determinants of house price movements....

With another real estate boom-bust bringing woes to the world economy, a quest for a better policy toolkit to deal with these boom-busts has begun. Macroprudential measures could be in such a toolkit. Yet, we know very little about their impact. This paper takes a step to fill this gap by...

We examine the risks to bank soundness associated with credit booms in a large set of countries. Using bank-level data in 90 countries between 1995 and 2005, we analyze the relationship between credit growth and bank soundness taking into account the potential two-way causality. We find that,...

Using detailed information on lobbying and mortgage lending activities, we find that lenders lobbying more on issues related to mortgage lending (i) had higher loan-to-income ratios, (ii) securitized more intensively, and (iii) had faster growing portfolios. Ex-post, delinquency rates are higher...

This paper examines the behavior of bank soundness indicators during episodes of brisk loan growth, using bank-level data for central and eastern Europe and controlling for the feedback effect of credit growth on bank soundness. No evidence is found that rapid loan expansion has weakened banks...

We examine how the cost of corporate credit varies around fiscal consolidations aimed at reducing government debt. Using a new dataset on fiscal consolidations and syndicated corporate loan data, we find that loan spreads increase with fiscal consolidations, especially for small firms, domestic...

The period following the 2000-01 crisis was marked by a successful disinflation program sustained through inflation targeting and fiscal discipline in Turkey. This paper studies the impact of monetary and fiscal policies on credit growth during this period. Using quarterly bank-level data...

Housing cycles and their impact on the financial system and the macroeconomy have become the center of attention following the global financial crisis. This paper documents the characteristics of housing cycles in a large set of countries, and examines the determinants of house price movements....