Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World

by Adam Tooze

of all corporate financing and 65 percent of household loans in Ukraine.58 Altogether, European banks had lent Ukraine at least $40 billion, with Austrian and French banks responsible for almost half. The onset of the crisis stopped the credit flow. And it hit Ukraine’s exports hard. As one of the legacies of the Soviet era, steel accounted for 42 percent of Ukraine’s foreign currency earnings. No sector was worse hit by the crash in global investment spending than steel. Prices plunged and industrial output by January 2009 was falling at an annualized rate of 34 percent.59 As Ukraine’s economy slid into recession, millions were left without pay, if they were not actually thrown out of work. Of all economies in the world, only Latvia would suffer a more severe contraction.