The Long Depression was, by a large margin, the longest-lasting recession in U.S. history. It began in the U.S. with the Panic of 1873, and lasted for over five years. This depression was the largest in a series of recessions at the turn of the 20th century, which proved to be a period of overall stagnation as the U.S. financial markets failed to keep pace with industrialization and changes in monetary policy. Great Depression The Great Depression, however, is widely considered to have been the most severe recession in U.S. history. Following the Wall Street Crash in 1929, the country's economy collapsed, wages fell and a quarter of the workforce was unemployed. It would take almost four years for recovery to begin. Additionally, U.S. expansion and integration in international markets allowed the depression to become a global event, which became a major catalyst in the build up to the Second World War. Decreasing severity When comparing recessions before and after the Great Depression, they have generally become shorter and less frequent over time. Only three recessions in the latter period have lasted more than one year. Additionally, while there were 12 recessions between 1880 and 1920, there were only six recessions between 1980 and 2020. The most severe recession in recent years was the financial crisis of 2007 (known as the Great Recession), where irresponsible lending policies and lack of government regulation allowed for a property bubble to develop and become detached from the economy over time, this eventually became untenable and the bubble burst. Although the causes of both the Great Depression and Great Recession were similar in many aspects, economists have been able to use historical evidence to try and predict, prevent, or limit the impact of future recessions.

Graph and download economic data for Equity Market Volatility Tracker: Financial Crises (EMVFINCRISES) from Jan 1985 to Oct 2025 about volatility, uncertainty, equity, financial, and USA.

The statisic shows the concern among Americans around the impact of the European financial crisis on the United States economy. According to the source, 15 percent of those polled stated that they were 'not too concerned' about the impact of the European financial crisis on the U.S. economy.

This dataset includes various economic indicators such as stock market performance, inflation rates, GDP, interest rates, employment data, and housing index, all of which are crucial for understanding the state of the economy. By analysing this dataset, one can gain insights into the causes and effects of past recessions in the US, which can inform investment decisions and policy-making.

There are 20 columns and 343 rows spanning 1990-04 to 2022-10

The columns are:

1. Price: Price column refers to the S&P 500 lot price over the years. The S&P 500 is a stock market index that measures the performance of 500 large companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States. This variable represents the value of the S&P 500 index from 1980 to present. Industrial Production: This variable measures the output of industrial establishments in the manufacturing, mining, and utilities sectors. It reflects the overall health of the manufacturing industry, which is a key component of the US economy.

2. INDPRO: Industrial production measures the output of the manufacturing, mining, and utility sectors of the economy. It provides insights into the overall health of the economy, as a decline in industrial production can indicate a slowdown in economic activity. This data can be used by policymakers and investors to assess the state of the economy and make informed decisions.

3. CPI: CPI stands for Consumer Price Index, which measures the change in the prices of a basket of goods and services that consumers purchase. CPI inflation represents the rate at which the prices of goods and services in the economy are increasing.

4. Treasure Bill rate (3 month to 30 Years): Treasury bills (T-bills) are short-term debt securities issued by the US government. This variable represents the interest rates on T-bills with maturities ranging from 3 months to 30 years. It reflects the cost of borrowing money for the government and provides an indication of the overall level of interest rates in the economy.

5. GDP: GDP stands for Gross Domestic Product, which is the value of all goods and services produced in a country. This dataset is taking into account only the Nominal GDP values. Nominal GDP represents the total value of goods and services produced in the US economy without accounting for inflation.

6. Rate: The Federal Funds Rate is the interest rate at which depository institutions lend reserve balances to other depository institutions overnight. It is set by the Federal Reserve and is used as a tool to regulate the money supply in the economy.

7. BBK_Index: The BBKI are maintained and produced by the Indiana Business Research Center at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. The BBK Coincident and Leading Indexes and Monthly GDP Growth for the U.S. are constructed from a collapsed dynamic factor analysis of a panel of 490 monthly measures of real economic activity and quarterly real GDP growth. The BBK Leading Index is the leading subcomponent of the cycle measured in standard deviation units from trend real GDP growth.

8. Housing Index: This variable represents the value of the housing market in the US. It is calculated based on the prices of homes sold in the market and provides an indication of the overall health of the housing market.

9. Recession binary column: This variable is a binary indicator that takes a value of 1 when the US economy is in a recession and 0 otherwise. It is based on the official business cycle dates provided by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Abstract The paper aims to analyze the wide range of unconventional monetary policies adopted in the U.S. since the 2007-2008 financial crises, focusing on conceptual aspects, the implementation of different programs and measures adopted by FED, and their effectiveness. It is argued that the use of credit and quasi-debt policies had significant effects on the financial conditions and on a set of macroeconomic variables in the US, such as output and employment. This result raises questions about the effectiveness of conventional monetary policy and the forward guidance, both of which were key elements in the New Macroeconomics Consensus view that preceded the 2007-2008 financial crisis.

Economic models that do not incorporate financial frictions only explain about 70 to 80 percent of the decline in world trade that occurred in the 2008-2009 crisis. We review evidence that shows financial factors also contributed to the great trade collapse and uncover two new stylized facts in support of it. First, we show that the prices of manufactured exports rose relative to domestic prices during the crisis. Second, we show that US seaborne exports and imports, which are likely to be more sensitive to trade finance problems, saw their prices rise relative to goods shipped by air or land.

Graph and download economic data for Dates of U.S. recessions as inferred by GDP-based recession indicator (JHDUSRGDPBR) from Q4 1967 to Q1 2025 about recession indicators, GDP, and USA.

By April 2026, it is projected that there is a probability of ***** percent that the United States will fall into another economic recession. This reflects a significant decrease from the projection of the preceding month.

Do international lenders of last resort create financial instability by generating moral hazard? The evidence is thin and plagued with measurement error. We use the number of American troops hosted by third countries to measure the strength of American commitment to ensuring the countries’ economic health. We test several hypotheses against a dataset covering about sixty-eight countries between 1960 and 2009. Using evidence from fixed-effects and instrumental-variable models, we find that increasing the number of US troops by one standard deviation above the mean raises the probability of a financial crisis in the host country by up to 13 percentage points. We also investigate the channels through which moral hazard materializes. Countries with more US troops conduct more expansionary fiscal and monetary policies, implement riskier financial regulations, and receive more capital, especially from US banks. While many scholars of international relations view the American overseas military presence as a source of stability, we identify an underexplored mechanism by which it generates instability.

ABSTRACT This paper aims to evaluate the profitability of the major North-american banks after the crisis of 2007-2008, as well as to seek preliminary explanations to the results found. To do so, it assesses the historical data from 1932 until 2015. The results show that the share of total profits in the North-american economy captured by the financial sector has reduced compared to the peak of the last decade but is still at a higher level than the post-war baseline. The evidence points to the decrease of leverage by regulatory pressure as the main cause of the reduction.

We examine the effects of constituents, special interests, and ideology on congressional voting on two of the most significant pieces of legislation in US economic history. Representatives whose constituents experience a sharp increase in mortgage defaults are more likely to support the Foreclosure Prevention Act, especially in competitive districts. Interestingly, representatives are more sensitive to defaults of their own-party constituents. Special interests in the form ofhigher campaign contributions from the financial industry increase the likelihood of supporting the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. However, ideologically conservative representatives are less responsive to both constituent and special interests. (JEL D72, G21, G28)

From the Summer of 2007 until the end of 2009 (at least), the world was gripped by a series of economic crises commonly known as the Global Financial Crisis (2007-2008) and the Great Recession (2008-2009). The financial crisis was triggered by the collapse of the U.S. housing market, which caused panic on Wall Street, the center of global finance in New York. Due to the outsized nature of the U.S. economy compared to other countries and particularly the centrality of U.S. finance for the world economy, the crisis spread quickly to other countries, affecting most regions across the globe. By 2009, global GDP growth was in negative territory, with international credit markets frozen, international trade contracting, and tens of millions of workers being made unemployed.

Global similarities, global differences

Since the 1980s, the world economy had entered a period of integration and globalization. This process particularly accelerated after the collapse of the Soviet Union ended the Cold War (1947-1991). This was the period of the 'Washington Consensus', whereby the U.S. and international institutions such as the World Bank and IMF promoted policies of economic liberalization across the globe. This increasing interdependence and openness to the global economy meant that when the crisis hit in 2007, many countries experienced the same issues. This is particularly evident in the synchronization of the recessions in the most advanced economies of the G7. Nevertheless, the aggregate global GDP number masks the important regional differences which occurred during the recession. While the more advanced economies of North America, Western Europe, and Japan were all hit hard, along with countries who are reliant on them for trade or finance, large emerging economies such as India and China bucked this trend. In particular, China's huge fiscal stimulus in 2008-2009 likely did much to prevent the global economy from sliding further into a depression. In 2009, while the United States' GDP sank to -2.6 percent, China's GDP, as reported by national authorities, was almost 10 percent.

This paper assesses the validity of comparisons between the current financial crisis and past crises in the United States. We highlight aspects of two National Banking Era crises (the Panic of 1873 and the Panic of 1907) that are relevant for comparison with the Panic of 2008. In 1873, overinvestment in railroad debt and the default of railroad companies on that debt led to the failure of numerous brokerage houses, precursor to the modern investment bank. During the Panic of 1907, panic-related deposit withdrawals centered on the less regulated trust companies, which had only indirect access to the existing lender of last resort, similar to investment banks in 2008. The popular press has made numerous references to the banking crises of the Great Depression as relevant comparisons to the recent crisis. This paper argues that such an analogy is inaccurate. The previous banking crises in U.S. history reflected widespread depositor withdrawals whereas the recent panic arose from counterparty solvency fears and large counterparty exposures among large complex financial intermediaries. In historical incidents, monitoring counterparty exposures was standard banking practice and the exposures were smaller. From this perspective, the lessons from the past appear less directly relevant for the current crisis.

We examine the evolution of real per capita GDP around 100 systemic banking crises. Part of the costs of these crises owes to the protracted nature of recovery. On average, it takes about 8 years to reach the pre-crisis level of income; the median is about 6.5 years. Five to six years after the onset of crisis, only Germany and the United States (out of 12 systemic cases) have reached their 2007-2008 peaks in real income. Forty-five percent of the episodes recorded double dips. Post-war business cycles are not the relevant comparator for the recent crises in advanced economies.

Graph and download economic data for Real-time Sahm Rule Recession Indicator (SAHMREALTIME) from Dec 1959 to Sep 2025 about recession indicators, academic data, and USA.

The Great Recession (2008-2009) was an economic recession largely caused by the collapse of the U.S. housing market and the subsequent financial crisis on Wall Street. The administration of President George W. Bush took unprecedented measures to backstop the U.S. financial system and wider economy in 2008 with its Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). This program was designed to purchase non-performing assets from financial institutions, such as subprime mortgage loans and related financial instruments, which had been responsible for the crisis. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and his department were given an initial authorization to spend up to 700 billion U.S. dollars on the program, although this was later lowered to 475 billion. From 2008 to 2012, the TARP program disbursed 417.6 billion U.S. dollars to purchase troubled assets and equity in the companies which held such assets. Of these funds, the majority was spent on the bank support programs, while significant amounts also went to bailouts of the car manufacturing industry and to the insurance giant American International Group (AIG).

Countries become more politically polarized and fractionalized following financial crises, reducing the likelihood of major financial reforms precisely when they might have especially large benefits. The evidence from a large sample of countries provides strong support for the hypotheses that following a financial crisis, voters become more ideologically extreme and ruling coalitions become weaker, independently of whether they were initially in power. The evidence that increased polarization and weaker governments reduce the chances of financial reform and that financial crises lead to legislative gridlock and anemic reform is less clear-cut. The US debt overhang resolution is discussed as an illustration.

This file contains the data and code for the publication "The Federal Reserve's Response to the Global Financial Crisis and Its Long-Term Impact: An Interrupted Time-Series Natural Experimental Analysis" by A. C. Kamkoum, 2023.

US bank participation in credit derivatives. US banks’ holding of credit derivatives rapidly increased between 1997 and 2007 and started a steady decline after 2011. We used this trend to divide our analysis into three subperiods, pre-financial crisis, during crisis, and post financial crisis. We found that banks are more likely to participate in the credit derivatives market if they were larger, were more experienced in derivatives, held higher risk assets, and had less core capital than others. The results from a more detailed analysis of the three subperiods showed that the financial crisis represented a transitional period for US banks’ holdings of credit derivatives. The results indicate that US banks increased their hedging and increased their appetite for risk. The financial crisis also represented a structural change in type of loans held by participating US banks. The results show that US banks converged towards hedging around the financial crisis and away from speculation in credit derivatives. The increase hedging may allow US banks to increase their appetite for risky assets.

ABSTRACT This work, to begin with, draws attention to the clear contrast between the intensity and evolution of the crisis of the thirties and the one that bursts into the early eighties, originating the so-called “lost decade” which, in fact and except for few exceptions, has not yet been overcome. Several main issues are emphasized. On the one hand, the incidence of the first crisis was substantially more serious than the second. On the other, the external circumstances were more disadvantageous and prolonged due to the repercussion of the crisis on the “central economies” and the incidence of the Second World War. In spite of these circumstances, most of the Latin American countries could initiate their recuperation and maintain their so-called “inward development” up to, approximately, the sixties. In the last part, after analysing different facts which influenced the evolution - mainly, the role played by the central economies in the two recalled crisis -, emphasis is made on the fact that we “live in another Latin America” and that it is necessary, above all, to constitute other socio-political agglomerations inherent to the internal and external realities of present time.