Comparative Analysis of Financial Crisis: Average Effects on Government Debt

From nakedcapitalism:
"Economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff have been publishing various findings from a large-scale data set they have constructed of past financial crises. They have looked back as far as 800 years, but not surprisingly, most of their output has consisted of analyses of modern crises (you can find some earlier discussions here and here).

Their work has shown that financial crises are more severe and protracted than "normal" recessions. In some of their previous presentations, they had parsed out financial crises in advanced economies versus those in developing countries, and were surprised to find their trajectories were remarkably similar, so their latest product looks at both types together. It also includes two prewar developed country episodes where Reinhart and Rogoff had sufficient housing price and other relevant data.

To me the single most frightening finding is that:

"Government debt "explodes", increasing an average of 86%, but the cause is typically not a banking industry recapitalization, but maintaining services in the face of collapsing tax revenues and countercyclical measure ex financial system measures".