2005, Issue 2. BIS central bankers’ speeches  See Rünstler, G. and M. Vlekke (2018), “Business, Housing and Credit Cycles”, Journal of Applied Econometrics, 33(2): 212-226; Schüler, Y., P. Hiebert and I. Jaccard (2017), “Contrasting financial and business cycles: Stylized facts and candidate explanations”, mimeo Bundesbank and ECB. [11]  Svensson, L.E.O.
They depress banks’ profits and curb their ability to finance the economy. The good news is that we are seeing some progress here. The proportion of non-performing loans in the euro area fell from more than 7% in the second quarter of 2015 to below 6% at the beginning of 2017. Still, I think the banks need to be more ambitious.