That's Interesting
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Boston Fed Paper: Credit Card Utilization and Consumption over the Life Cycle and Business Cycle
28th December, 2017Nearly 80 percent of U.S. adults have a credit card, and more than half of them revolve their debt from month to month. Using a large sample of credit bureau data, this paper documents a tight link between available credit (the limit) and credit card debt, and then it offers a model-based interpretation of this linkage.
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IMF Working Paper – ‘Resolving China’s Zombies: Tackling Debt and Raising Productivity’
07th December, 2017Nonviable “zombie” firms have become a key concern in China. Using novel firm-level industrial survey data, this paper illustrates the central role of zombies and their strong linkages with stateowned enterprises (SOEs) in contributing to debt vulnerabilities and low productivity.
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Forecast Errors and Uncertainty Shocks
24th July, 2017Macroeconomic forecasts are persistently too optimistic. This paper finds that common factors related to general uncertainty about U.S. macrofinancial prospects and global demand drive this overoptimism. These common factors matter most for advanced economies and G- 20 countries. The results suggest that an increase in uncertainty-driven overoptimism has dampening effects on next-year real GDP growth rates. This implies that incorporating the common structure governing forecast errors across countries can help improve subsequent forecasts.
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The Italian Banking Crisis
24th July, 2017Why are Italy’s banks in crisis and what’s the impact on business? The country’s banks have huge numbers of non-performing loans, the result of nearly a decade of recession. The economy has shrunk by nearly 10% in that time. Some small banks have already failed, others may follow. What has it been like to do business through these very lean times? Are banks continuing to lend? And what solutions might there be for one of Europe’s biggest players? Ruth Sunderland visits small businesses, the backbone of the Italian economy, and asks what is required to strengthen the banking system.
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