This paper examines the importance of credit market shocks in driving global business cycles over the period 1988:1-2009:4. We first estimate common components

The global economy has experienced four waves of rapid debt accumulation over the past 50 years. The first three debt waves ended with financial crises in many

We examine the properties of house price fluctuations across 18 advanced economies over the past 40 years. We ask two specific questions: First, how synchronize

This paper reviews the literature on financial crises focusing on three specific aspects. First, what are the main factors explaining financial crises? Since ma