Financial cycle booms can end in crises and, even if they do not, they tend to weaken growth. Given their slow build-up, do they convey information about recession risk? We compare the predictive performance of different financial cycle proxies with that of the term spread - a popular recession...

In this speech, Sir John Gieve, Deputy Governor for financial stability, discusses the financial cycle and the UK economy. He argues that the US sub-prime market provided only the initial spark and fed a fire fuelled by much broader weaknesses in the financial sector. He outlines a number of...