Which 2008 crisis followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers and a worldwide credit freeze?

The global financial crisis followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers and a worldwide credit freeze in 2008.

The crisis developed from a combination of risky mortgage lending, rapidly expanding housing credit, complex securitized products, excessive leverage, and inadequate risk assessment. When United States house prices fell and mortgage defaults rose, losses spread through banks and financial institutions connected to housing markets.

Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy on September 15, 2008. Its failure intensified fear about counterparty risk and helped freeze lending markets. Governments and central banks then provided emergency loans, guarantees, capital injections, and other extraordinary support.

The crisis caused a deep global recession and large employment losses. A common mistake is to call it simply the subprime crisis: subprime mortgages were important, but the worldwide event also involved investment banks, insurers, money markets, and sovereign responses. The crisis also led to major financial-regulation reforms.