The world appears to be recovering from the global recession that has caused widespread business contraction, increases in unemployment, and shrinking government revenues. Although the industrialised economies have stopped contracting, for many, unemployment is still rising. The United States likely hit bottom in June 2009, but numerous small banks and households still face huge problems in restoring their balance sheets, and unemployment has combined with subprime loans to keep home foreclosures at a high rate. Nearly all industrialised countries and many emerging and developing nations avoided dropping into another "Great Depression" by implementing sizeable economic stimulus and/or financial sector rescue packages. This book analyses the crisis which has exposed fundamental weaknesses in financial systems world-wide, demonstrate how interconnected and interdependent economies are today, and has posed vexing policy dilemmas.