The real engine of the business cycle

A valuable lesson from the Great Recession is that credit-supply expansions play a key role in subsequent recessions. When lenders make credit more available or more affordable, households respond by taking on debt, which drives up aggregate demand that is, until the music stops. AMIR SUFI and ATIF MIAN* analyse

CHICAGO: Every major financial crisis leaves a unique footprint. Just as banking crises throughout the 19th and 20th centuries revealed the importance of financial-sector liquidity and lenders of last resort, the Great Depression underscored the necessity of counter-cyclical fiscal and monetary policies.

And, more recently, the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent Great Recession revealed the key drivers of credit-driven business cycles.

Editor's Comment
Human rights are sacred

It highlights the need to protect rights such as access to clean water, education, healthcare and freedom of expression.President Duma Boko, rightly honours past interventions from securing a dignified burial for Gaoberekwe Pitseng in the CKGR to promoting linguistic inclusion. Yet, they also expose a critical truth, that a nation cannot sustainably protect its people through ad hoc acts of compassion alone.It is time for both government and the...

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