The contractionary effects around the world were particularly concentrated in trade and industrial production. Some of the economies in the east Asian region posted declines in those variables of the order of 30 per cent in the space of just a few months in late 2008. And of course financial markets were severely affected.
Global equity prices fell by around 40 per cent and there was a major dislocation in debt markets. On all of these counts, the recent crisis was certainly the most severe since the Depression, and in that sense it might be thought of as the kind of once-in-a-lifetime event that helps to define an epoch.