Great Recession

The Great Recession was a severe recession that ran from December 2007 to June 2009, coinciding with the global financial crisis and marking the longest economic downturn since World War II. The Great Recession was marked by severe declines in real economic output, surging unemployment, collapsing real estate prices and a stock market crash. The accompanying financial crisis forced governments world-wide to bail out several large and over-leveraged banks. Governments responded by unleashing fiscal stimulus as well as orthodox and unorthodox monetary policy programmes, including huge asset-purchase programmes, or QE.