This thesis consists of four self-contained papers related to banking, credit markets and financial stability. Paper [I] presents a credit market model and finds, using an agent based modeling approach, that credit crunches have a tendency to occur; even when credit markets are almost entirely...

This paper analyses the role of bank-related constraints in explaining the sharp slowdown in bank lending to non-financial corporations in Germany during the recent financial crisis. We use a panel approach based on a unique data set which matches the individual responses of the banks...

For decades, the academic literature has focused on three survey measures of expected inflation: the Livingston Survey, the Survey of Professional Forecasters, and the Michigan Survey. While these measures have been useful in developing models of forecasting inflation, the data are low frequency...

This paper studies the role of credit market development in an economy with credit frictions. I examine how the provision of credit in connection with collateral assets affects both economic performance and business cycle volatility. First, I analyse the macroeconomic implications of an...

This research aims at performing an econometric analysis on the credit cycle and business cycle from a comparative perspective, with a focus on ten developing and advanced economies from the area of Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, in order to better understand their behaviour and the...

The growth performance of countries proved to be very different during the recent financial crisis. The objective of the paper is to investigate why, despite the fact that the crisis hit countries simultaneously, the length and depth of the crisis turned out to be very different across...

The present study, through substance and form, proves that contemporary academic interest for techniques to generate economic cycles is not a new one, but a continuation of old actions. As a result, have been sketched theoretical itineraries, convergent or divergent, designated to reflect the...

This paper compares the depth of the recent crisis and the Great Depression. We use a new data set to compare the drop in activity in the industrialized countries for seven activity indicators. This is done under the assumption that the recent crisis leveled off in mid-2009 for production and...

The goal of this paper is to provide stylized facts on recovery from economic downturns and to evaluate the role of macroeconomic policies in promoting recovery. In particular, we examine gross domestic product (GDP) recessions and financial downturns (credit contractions and stock price...