Overview
The credit cycle is an observed phenomenom of economies whereby the total credit extended in an economy tends to follow the familiar boom and bust cycles. That is, there is a period of loosening and expanding credit, followed by a period of tightening credit.
Credit cycles are tied fairly closely with business cycles.
Credit bubbles
Credit bubbles occur when the lenders in an economy loosen their credit standards enough so that they seem to have become detached from the actual fundamentals of the economy. This situation poses a systemic danger as the economy becomes over-leveraged which inevitably causes massive dislocations as credit standards are eventually tightened.