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Financial Factors and the Business Cycle

Author

Listed:
  • Tino Berger
  • Julia Richter
  • Benjamin Wong

Abstract

We study how financial factors shape and interact with the U.S. business cycle through a unified empirical approach where we jointly estimate financial and business cycles as well as identify their underlying drivers using a medium-scale Bayesian Vector Autoregression. First, we show, both in reduced form and when we identify a structural financial shock, that variation in financial factors had a larger role in driving the output gap post-2000 and a more modest role pre-2000. Our results suggest that the financial sector did play a role in overheating the business cycle pre-Great Recession. Second, while we document a positive unconditional correlation between the credit cycle and the output gap, the correlation of the lagged credit cycle and the contemporaneous output gap turns negative when we condition on a financial shock. The sign-switch suggests that the nature of the underlying shocks may be important for understanding the relationship between the business and financial cycles.

Suggested Citation

  • Tino Berger & Julia Richter & Benjamin Wong, 2020. "Financial Factors and the Business Cycle," CAMA Working Papers 2020-44, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    • Handle: RePEc:een:camaaa:2020-44
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    File URL: https://crawford.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/2025-01/44_2020_berger_richter_wong1.pdf
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Raffaella Giacomini & Toru Kitagawa & Matthew Read, 2021. "Identification and Inference Under Narrative Restrictions," Papers 2102.06456, arXiv.org.
    2. Che, Ming & Zhu, Zixiang & Li, Yujia, 2023. "Geopolitical risk and economic policy uncertainty: Different roles in China's financial cycle," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    3. Constantinescu, Mihnea & Nguyen, Anh Dinh Minh, 2021. "A century of gaps: Untangling business cycles from secular trends," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    4. Francesco Furlanetto & Kåre Hagelund & Frank Hansen & Ørjan Robstad, 2020. "Norges Bank Output Gap Estimates: Forecasting Properties, Reliability and Cyclical Sensitivity," Working Paper 2020/7, Norges Bank.
    5. Lukas Berend & Jan Pruser, 2025. "Large structural VARs with multiple linear shock and impact inequality restrictions," Papers 2505.19244, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2025.
    6. Giampaoli, Noemi & Cucculelli, Marco & Sullo, Valerio, 2024. "Business and financial cycle across regimes: Does financial stress matter?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 96(PB).
    7. Dubbert, Tore & Kempa, Bernd, 2024. "Nowcasting the output gap with shadow rates," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 236(C).
    8. Berger Tino & Hienzsch Sebastian, 2025. "Which Global Cycle? A Stochastic Factor Selection Approach for Global Macro-Financial Cycles," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 29(5), pages 541-559.
    9. Ashe, Sinéad & Egan, Paul, 2023. "Examining financial and business cycle interaction using cross recurrence plot analysis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    10. Tino Berger & Christian Ochsner, 2022. "Tracking the German Business Cycle," MAGKS Papers on Economics 202212, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    11. Francesco Furlanetto & Kåre Hagelund & Frank Hansen & Ørjan Robstad, 2023. "Norges Bank Output Gap Estimates: Forecasting Properties, Reliability, Cyclical Sensitivity and Hysteresis," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 85(1), pages 238-267, February.
    12. Morley, James & Rodríguez-Palenzuela, Diego & Sun, Yiqiao & Wong, Benjamin, 2023. "Estimating the euro area output gap using multivariate information and addressing the COVID-19 pandemic," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    13. Bogdan Andrei Dumitrescu & Robert-Adrian Grecu, 2023. "Impact of Financial Factors on the Economic Cycle Dynamics in Selected European Countries," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 16(12), pages 1-17, November.
    14. Tino Berger & Lorenzo Pozzi, 2023. "Cyclical consumption," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 23-064/VI, Tinbergen Institute.
    15. Tore Dubbert & Adrian Schroeder, 2025. "Conditioning business and financial cycles on multivariate information," CQE Working Papers 11225, Center for Quantitative Economics (CQE), University of Muenster.
    16. Berger, Tino & Ochsner, Christian, 2022. "Robust real-time estimates of the German output gap based on a multivariate trend-cycle decomposition," Discussion Papers 35/2022, Deutsche Bundesbank.

    More about this item

    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • C18 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Methodolical Issues: General
    • E51 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Money Supply; Credit; Money Multipliers
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

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