Center and periphery: The spread of the global crisis to the economies of the region

Working papers | 2010 | N 48

Abstract

It is a commonplace to affirm that the world economy faces its most serious crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s; Less usual, however, is to highlight that the memorable nature of the event only tended to be revealed with a considerable delay, as the events were chained together, and only as the crisis proceeded through stages of increasing depth and unprecedented extent. A notable fact, in this sense, is that despite its depth and truly global character, the crisis was initially contained in the financial markets of advanced economies for just over a year since its first manifestations in mid-2007. The event It was, in fact, initially interpreted by most observers and the policy authorities of the developed economies themselves as a relatively “minor” episode and essentially limited to particular segments of the credit markets.