Global Financial Cycles Since 1880

Abstract

With the aim to provide a detailed understanding of global financial cycles and their relevance over time, we analyse co-movement in credit, house prices, equity prices, and interest rates across 17 advanced economies over 130 years. Using a time-varying dynamic factor model, we observe global co-movement across financial variables as well as variable-specific global cycles of different lengths and amplitudes. Global cycles have gained relevance over time. For equity prices, they now constitute the main driver of fluctuations in most countries. Global cycles in credit and housing have become much more pronounced and protracted since the 1980s, but their relevance increased for a sub-group of financially open and developed economies only. Panel regressions indicate that a country’s susceptibility to global financial cycles tends to increase with financial openness and financial integration, the extent of mortgage-related lending, and the efficiency of stock markets. Understanding the cross-country heterogeneity in financial market characteristics therefore matters for the design of appropriate financial stabilization policies across countries and sectors.