In 1946 the economist Arthur Burns defined a business cycle as a period of expansion occurring about the same time in many economic activities, followed by similar general recessions, contractions and revivals, which merge into the expansion phase of the next cycle. Cycles may take from one year...

The U.S. housing market crash in 2007-2008 was not caused overnight by an over-supply of new homes that could not be sold. It was caused by the new money flows into mortgages ever since 1998. What changed in 1998 was that mortgage funds were not only used for building new homes at a price in...

Monetary shocks largely affect economic activity in Western Australia. In smaller proportion, those shocks generate contractions in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, while economic activity in Queensland is significantly less affected. Finally, we develop a new approach to uncover...

Savings are allocated over the acquisition of assets like homes, shares and bonds and government debt paper. For a home acquisition an individual household uses own equity provided by the buyer and outside equity provided by banks. Such outside equity can help to increase the volume of new...

Economic growth data does not show how such growth was achieved. Was it based on income growth and consumption spending levels or was it based on borrowings to extend the income levels? The question is vital for deciding which economic tools work best for correcting imbalances. The main...

This paper investigates the influence of liquidity in the major developed and major developing ‎economies on commodity prices. Unanticipated increases in the BRIC countries’ liquidity is ‎associated with significant and persistent increases in commodity prices that are much larger ‎than...

The real financial crisis in the U.S. and in other countries did not take place in the banking or the wider financial sector -yes banks and others financial institutions were affected by their own induced excessive lending schemes- but no, it seriously affected the individual households. More...

Cars and also equipment used in production processes depreciate in value through their use. Other assets like homes, share and bonds do not depreciate in the same manner. The latter asset values go up and down not as a consequence of the remaining life period, but because of their links with...

There have been substantial increases in liquidity in recent years and real oil prices have almost returned to the high levels achieved before the Global financial crisis. Unanticipated increases in global real M2 lead to statistically significant increases in real oil prices. The cumulative...

The U.S financial crisis started in October 2005. The level of new home starts would have replaced the total owner occupied housing stock in 37 years. Much faster than desirable. Mortgage interest rates also went up in same month. In 2006 mortgage lending went on unabated, but housing values did...