Source: ONS and Bank of England  Chart 10: 1990s – Real GDP and real lending  Annual growth  25  Annual growth  10  Business lending (lhs)  20 15  GDP (rhs)  8  Mortgage lending (lhs)  10  6 4  5  2  0  0  -5  -2  -10  -4 -8  -4  0  4  8  12  16  Quarters from start of recovery (1991 Q4 = 0) * Lending series deflated using the GDP deflator. Source: ONS and Bank of England  14  BIS Review 108/2009  Chart 11: Recessions and recoveries – median paths  Interquartile range financial recessions Financial recessions  Mean time to trough  Normal recessions  Mean time to trough  106 104 102 100 98 96  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Quarters from peak in output  7  8  9  10 11 12  *Source:IMF and Bank of England staff calculations http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2009/01/index.htm  BIS Review 108/2009  15
Christian Noyer: The euro area is getting stronger Speech by Mr Christian Noyer, Governor of the Bank of France and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements, at the Paris Europlace International Financial Forum, “Post-crisis growth and investment opportunities in Europe”, New York, 22 April 2013. *  *  *  Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am very pleased to have this opportunity to speak to you here in New York. I’d like to offer you some views about the euro area from both a short- and long-term perspective. I’ll start with Cyprus. This was certainly a traumatic episode. Obviously, the decision process was not optimal. And the adjustment effort requested from the country, while absolutely necessary, was totally unexpected by the population. As a result, many observers have interpreted the Cyprus crisis as a sign of fragility and uncertainty about the euro. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Imagine if the situation in Cyprus had occurred nine months ago. Most likely it would have resulted in a new wave of turbulence in euro sovereign markets, with interest rate increases and strong capital flows out of the periphery. This was not the case. There was no contagion, and no spill-over effects from Cyprus to other euro area countries. During the first quarter of 2013, when the Cyprus crisis developed, long-term interest rates in Greece, Portugal and Ireland actually declined by around 270, 120 and 130 bps, respectively.