This paper proposes a novel approach, based on probit framework, towards measuring business cycle synchronization and financial cycle synchronization for 9 eurozone economies. We find strong cross-country synchronization in both business cycles and financial cycles. Moreover, financial synchronization dominates business cycle synchronization in the eurozone, especially after the introduction of the single currency. For some peripheral country pairs, we even find some evidence of "de-coupling" business cycles relative to the core countries but the majority of marginal business cycle effects do not change much over time. The former observation supports the often heard plea for more Europe-wide macro-prudential regulation whereas the latter observation gives ammunition to those economists that always stressed that the euro zone architecture is unfinished business and that the conditions for an optimum currency area are not fulfilled.JEL Classification: C25, E32, F44.
This paper attempts to pin down the key drivers of demand for and supply of real private sector credit in Pakistan. I use both the equilibrium and disequilibrium econometric frameworks, specifically tackling the issue of lack of consistency and/or efficiency of joint estimators in the former via the three‐stage least squares technique. On the demand side, I find that higher economic activity provides stimulus to credit whereas inflation dampens it. The stock market seems to play a dual role: as a source of alternative financing, a bullish market negatively impacts credit while, as an indicator of economic expectations, it provides a positive impetus. On the supply side, banks' lending capacity is found to be the major driver of credit while government borrowing has a crowding‐out effect. Pakistan currently faces supply constraints, which might put an additional check on capacity utilization by firms, thus damaging growth prospects. The results have important policy implications.
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