Great Recession

Not to be confused with the Great Depression during the 1930s.

World map showing real GDP growth rates for 2009; countries in brown were in a recession.

The Great Recession (see "Terminology" for other names) was a period of general economic decline observed in world markets during the late 2000s and early 2010s. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). The International Monetary Fund concluded that the overall impact was the most severe since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The Great Recession stemmed from the collapse of the United States real-estate market in relation to the global financial crisis of 2007 to 2008 and the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis of 2007 to 2009, though policies of other nations contributed as well. According to the nonprofit National Bureau of Economic Research (the official arbiter of U.S. recessions), the recession in the U.S. began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, thus extending over 19 months. The Great Recession resulted in a scarcity of valuable assets in the market economy and the collapse of the financial sector (banks) in the world economy; some banks were bailed out by the U.S. federal government.

The recession was not felt equally around the world; whereas most of the world's developed economies, particularly in North America and Europe, fell into a definitive recession, many more recently developed economies suffered far less impact, particularly China and India, whose economies grew substantially during this period.