Economists have long debated the relationship of bank credit to the business cycle. The attribution of economic cycles … rejects this notion and argues that the "pyramid of credit" plays a fundamental role not only in stabilizing economic activity …

Any empirical analysis of the credit channel faces a key identification challenge: changes in credit supply and demand … unique Euro area bank lending surveys. Embedding this information within a standard VAR model, we find that: (1) the credit … channel is active through the balance-sheets of households, firms and banks; (2) the credit channel amplifies the impact of a …

the global financial crisis. Excessive debt expansion in the run-up to the crisis resulted in credit risk, under …

This paper uses a unique dataset where credit rejections experienced by euro area firms are matched with firm and bank … characteristics. This allows us to study simultaneously the role that bank and firm weakness had in the credit reduction observed in … the euro area during the sovereign debt crisis, and in credit developments characterising the post-crisis recovery …