Moritz Schularick is professor of economics at the John F. Kennedy Institute of the Free University of Berlin, Germany. He has also been a visiting scholar at Cambridge University and worked in the financial industry for several years. His current work focuses on credit cycles, the determinants of financial crises, and the international monetary system. Together with Niall Ferguson, he coined the term “Chimerica” to describe the intimate financial relations between the United States and China. Working at the crossroads of monetary and international economics as well as economic history, his contributions can be found in the American Economic Review, the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Economic Growth, the Journal of Economic History, and several other journals.
Moritz Schularick
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When Credit Bites Back: Leverage, Business Cycles and Crises
This paper studies the role of credit in the business cycle, with a focus on private credit overhang.
Sovereigns versus Banks: Credit, Crises and Consequences
Two separate narratives have emerged in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis. One interpretation speaks of private financial excess and the key role of the banking system in leveraging and deleveraging the economy. The other emphasizes the public sector balance sheet over the private and worries about the risks of lax fiscal policies. However, the two may interact in important and understudied ways.
Sovereigns versus banks: Crises, causes and consequences
In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, few would dispute the risks of excessive borrowing. But which debts should one worry about – public or private? This column presents new research on the interplay of public and private debts since 1870 in 17 advanced economies. History demonstrates that excessive private-sector borrowing plays a greater role than fiscal profligacy in generating financial instability. However, when the credit boom collapses, the government’s capacity to alleviate the downturn is limited by the prevailing level of public debt.
The Making of America’s Imbalances
This paper tracks the development of sectoral saving and borrowing in the US economy over the past 50 years.
Featuring this expert
Credit Booms Gone Bust
Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff tell the history of financial crisis as a tale of excessive public debt. But what more commonly drives financial instability, says Moritz Schularick, is excessive private debt.