This paper tests the existence of political credit cycles, the positive co-movement between credit and elections. While support for this relationship has been found in some single-country studies, the link between electoral cycles and credit expansion has seen little exploration at the...

Rapid credit growth seems to precede many episodes of banking crises in both advanced and emerging market economies including the recent global financial crisis of 2007-09. All episodes of high credit growth are not followed by crisis, however. We argue that credit growth is more likely to lead...