the aftermath of financial crisis

What we can expect on average from historical precedents of severe financial crises:

• Real Housing Prices will drop by 35.5% and take 6 years to recover
• Equity Prices will drop by 55.9% and take 3.4 years to recover
• Unemployment will increase by 7% and take 4.8 years to recover
• GDP will drop by 9.3% and take 1.9 years to recover
• Real public debt will increase by 86% over 3 years

This is based on a historical study of 22 major banking crises in different countries for which data was available

Most of the crises in the study group were regional (with the exception of the Great Depression which was included). So the current crisis may be worse in this respect:

The global nature of the crisis will make it far more difficult for many countries to grow their way out through higher exports, or to smooth the consumption effects through foreign borrowing. In such circumstances, the recent lull in sovereign defaults is likely to come to an end. As Reinhart and Rogoff (2008b) highlight, defaults in emerging market economies tend to rise sharply when many countries are simultaneously experiencing domestic banking crises.

Source: The Aftermath of Financial Crisis by Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff