
Financial cycles and crises 43
the price of liquid assets and decreases the market value of less liquid assets such as
loans, thereby contracting the supply of credit to nancial or non- nancial agents.
The central bank can mitigate these eects by agreeing to lend, in these excep-
tional circumstances, against less liquid but high- quality collateral (Chapter 9).
2.2.3 Predicting nancial cycles
Financial cycles are hard to predict because, paradoxically, a nancial system can
be most vulnerable when it looks more robust. According to Minsky’s (1992)
instability hypothesis, when they observe low nancial risk, economic agents
are induced to ...