Time-frequency characterization of the U.S. financial cycle

•Empirical studies on the financial cycle are rare compared to those on the business cycle.•We use continuous wavelet tools to extract financial cycles from the data.•We find that the U.S. financial cycle is (much) longer than the business cycle.•We do not find strong evidence supporting the view that the financial cycle has lengthened during the Great Moderation period.

Despite an increase in research-motivated by the global financial crisis of 2007-08-empirical studies on the financial cycle are rare compared to those on the business cycle. This paper adds some new evidence to this scarce literature by using a different empirical methodology-wavelet analysis-to extract financial cycles from the data. Our results confirm that the U.S. financial cycle is (much) longer than the business cycle, but we do not find strong evidence supporting the view that the financial cycle has lengthened during the Great Moderation period.