Global liquidity is driven by monetary policy and the supply and demand for credit, according to a Bank for International Settlements working paper, and therefore cannot be assessed with a single indicator.

The authors, Sandra Eickmeier, Leonardo Gambacorta, and Boris Hofmann, note that in the decade before the finanical crisis, global credit supply conditions "loosened markedly", partly as a result of financial deregulation.

However, the authors say, as the crisis built up, global monetary