taken together , these results suggest that in the forty years before the 2008 global financial crisis, the output declines following financial crises in advanced countries were on average moderate and largely temporary. Our source and approach do not allow us to separate financial distress arising from a decline in output from financial distress due to more exogenous factors. When we examine the behavior of the financial distress variable itself, we find that it is moderately predictable based on lagged output-suggesting that omitted variable bias may be present.