Recovering from The Great Recession: A Comparative Analysis of the Nature and Effectiveness of Global Reactionary Policy to the 2008 Financial Crisis

Abstract

The 2008 'subprime' financial crisis caused intense economic recession and instability on an international scale, creating the need for immediate reactionary and interventionist policy from most governments. With a wealth of large-scale dedicated studies to this specific topic emerging in recent years, we have a unique opportunity to synthesize these findings in a way that could indicate potential effective policy actions. This paper intends to identify, categorize and compare an array of policies enacted by utilizing a specific cross section of nations similar in political culture (Australia, New Zealand, and Canada), in an attempt to broadly asses and isolate global trends of reactionary policy-making and the effectiveness of these policies, in nations of comparable institutions, over a relatively small time frame.