This paper links the current sub-prime mortgage crisis to a decline in lending standards associated with the rapid expansion of this market. We show that lending standards declined more in areas that experienced larger credit booms and house price increases. We also find that the underlying...

Credit booms are a focal point for policymakers and scholars of financial crises. Yet our understanding of how the real sector behaves during booms, and why some booms may go bad, is limited. Despite a large and growing body of literature, most of the work has focused on aggregate economic...

We examine the risks to bank soundness associated with credit booms in a large set of countries. Using bank-level data in 90 countries between 1995 and 2005, we analyze the relationship between credit growth and bank soundness taking into account the potential two-way causality. We find that,...

We examine the risks to bank soundness associated with credit booms in a large set of countries. Using bank-level data in 90 countries between 1995 and 2005, we analyze the relationship between credit growth and bank soundness taking into account the potential two-way causality. We find that,...

This paper examines risks to bank soundness associated with rapid credit growth in a large set of countries. At a conceptual level, bank soundness may weaken during episodes of fast credit growth because of capacity constraints or competitive pressures as banks make riskier loans in order to...