Authors Mathias Drehmann and Mikael Juselius first wrote about it in their article "Do debt service costs affect macroeconomic and financial stability?" published in the BIS Quarterly Review September 2012. They summarized their findings this way:
"We find that the DSR prior to economic slumps is related to the size of the subsequent output losses. Moreover, the DSR provides a very accurate early warning signal of impending systemic banking crises at horizons of up to one to two years in advance."