The global financial crisis generated the deepest and longest recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The defining event of the 2008 global financial crisis was a “hemorrhagic stroke”: a paralytic implosion of the loanable funds markets. Depression forces such as they exist in the US, Europe, or Japan, do not appear to hold in the case of Israel. Its resilience to the external financial shock during the global crisis is rooted in (a) the absence of credit boom in the wake of the crisis, and (b) the relatively small commercial banks' exposure in terms of toxic assets that for the European countries played a major role. Reacting to the global trade-diminishing shocks, policy makers’ concern was three-fold: First, banks exposures to toxic assets such as mortgage based securities and foreigners’ debt obligations. Partly because Israel skipped the credit bubble, and bank regulations were relatively tight, Israel showed a sound resilience to the global financial shock. Second, Israel export markets softened and demand conditions deteriorated. Third, Israel domestic currency got strengthened. Bank of Israel addressed the last two issues by a massive foreign exchange market intervention to weaken the value of the domestic currency, and stimulate exports. The need to prolong the stimulus policies dissipated relatively fast.
No lending relationships and liquidity management of small businesses during a financial shock