Unemployment Rates, Before and After Banking Crises This figure tracks unemployment in the wake of three banking crises: the Panic of 1893, the Swedish banking crisis of 1991, and the American financial crisis of 2008. t represents the year of the crisis—1893 for the Panic of 1893, 1991 for the Swedish banking crisis, and 2008 for the American financial crisis of that year. t − 2 is the date two years before the crisis hit; t + 5 is the date five years after. In all three cases, the economy suffered severe damage from the banking crisis: unemployment shot up and came down only slowly and erratically. In all three cases, five years after the crisis the unemployment rate remained high compared to pre-crisis levels.Sources: Christina D. Romer, “Spurious Volatility in Historical Unemployment Data,” Journal of Political Economy 94, no. 1 (1986): 1–37; Eurostat; Bureau of Labor Statistics.