page_title: Financial crisis of 2007–2008
hierarchical_section_title: Financial crisis of 2007–2008
caption_attribution_description: English: TED spread, an indicator of credit risk, from 2006-7-1 to 2009-8-24.
context_page_description: The financial crisis of 2007–2008, also known as the global financial crisis, was a severe worldwide financial crisis. Excessive risk-taking by banks combined with the bursting of the United States housing bubble caused the values of securities tied to U.S. real estate to plummet, damaging financial institutions globally, culminating with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008, and an international banking crisis. The crisis sparked the Great Recession, which, at the time, was the most severe global recession since the Great Depression. It was also followed by the European debt crisis, which began with a deficit in Greece in late 2009, and the 2008–2011 Icelandic financial crisis, which involved the bank failure of all three of the major banks in Iceland and, relative to the size of its economy, was the largest economic collapse suffered by any country in economic history.
  U.S. home mortgage debt relative to GDP increased from an average of 46% during the 1990s to 73% during 2008, reaching $10.5 trillion. The increase in cash out refinancings, as home values rose, fueled an increase in consumption that could no longer be sustained when home prices declined.
context_section_description: The financial crisis of 2007–2008, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a severe worldwide financial crisis. Excessive risk-taking by banks combined with the bursting of the United States housing bubble caused the values of securities tied to U.S. real estate to plummet, damaging financial institutions globally, culminating with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008, and an international banking crisis. The crisis sparked the Great Recession, which, at the time, was the most severe global recession since the Great Depression. It was also followed by the European debt crisis, which began with a deficit in Greece in late 2009, and the 2008–2011 Icelandic financial crisis, which involved the bank failure of all three of the major banks in Iceland and, relative to the size of its economy, was the largest economic collapse suffered by any country in economic history.
  U.S. home mortgage debt relative to GDP increased from an average of 46% during the 1990s to 73% during 2008, reaching $10.5 trillion. The increase in cash out refinancings, as home values rose, fueled an increase in consumption that could no longer be sustained when home prices declined. Many financial institutions owned investments whose value was based on home mortgages such as mortgage-backed securities, or credit derivatives used to insure them against failure, which declined in value significantly. The International Monetary Fund estimated that large U.S. and European banks lost more than $1 trillion on toxic assets and from bad loans from January 2007 to September 2009.
  Lack of investor confidence in bank solvency and declines in credit availability led to plummeting stock and commodity prices in late 2008 and early 2009. The crisis rapidly spread into a global economic shock, resulting in several bank failures. Economies worldwide slowed during this period since credit tightened and international trade declined. Housing markets suffered and unemployment soared, resulting in evictions and foreclosures. Several businesses failed. From its peak in the second quarter of 2007 at $64.4 trillion, household wealth in the United States fell $14 trillion, to $50.4 trillion by the end of the first quarter of 2009, resulting in a decline in consumption, then a decline in business investment. In the fourth quarter of 2008, the quarter-over-quarter decline in real GDP in the U.S. was 8.4%. The U.S. unemployment rate peaked at 10.0% in October 2009, the highest rate since 1983 and roughly twice the pre-crisis rate. The average hours per work week declined to 33, the lowest level since the government began collecting the data in 1964.
  The economic crisis started in the U.S. but spread to the rest of the world. U.S. consumption accounted for more than a third of the growth in global consumption between 2000 and 2007 and the rest of the world depended on the U.S. consumer as a source of demand. Toxic securities were owned by corporate and institutional investors globally. Derivatives such as credit default swaps also increased the linkage between large financial institutions. The de-leveraging of financial institutions, as assets were sold to pay back obligations that could not be refinanced in frozen credit markets, further accelerated the solvency crisis and caused a decrease in international trade. Reductions in the growth rates of developing countries were due to falls in trade, commodity prices, investment and remittances sent from migrant workers. This led to a dramatic rise in the number of households living below the poverty line. States with fragile political systems feared that investors from Western states would withdraw their money because of the crisis.
  As part of national fiscal policy response to the Great Recession, governments and central banks, including the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England provided then-unprecedented trillions of dollars in bailouts and stimulus, including expansive fiscal policy and monetary policy to offset the decline in consumption and lending capacity, avoid a further 
caption: The TED spread (in red), an indicator of perceived credit risk in the general economy, increased significantly during the financial crisis, reflecting an increase in perceived credit risk. The TED spread spiked up in July 2007, remained volatile for a year, then spiked even higher in September 2008, reaching a record 4.65% on October 10, 2008.
exif: {}