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...

In May 2013, Federal Reserve officials first began to talk of the possibility of tapering their security purchases. This tapering talk had a sharp negative impact on emerging markets. Different countries, however, were affected differently. We use data for exchange rates, foreign reserves and...

Interest rates in several countries have recently been decreased to exceptionally low levels and a Quantitative Easing Monetary Policy (QEMP) has been adopted by most major central banks. In this context this paper is very actual, as it sheds some light on the effectiveness of the Japanese use...

The 2007-2009 financial crisis that evolved from various factors including the housing boom, aggressive lending activity, financial innovation, and increased access to money and capital markets prompted unprecedented U.S. government intervention in the financial sector. We examine changes in...

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...

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...