Carmen M. Reinhart, Kenneth S. Rogoff
http://www.nber.org/papers/w19823
http://www.nber.org/papers/w19823
This is a NBER working paper in Jan 2014, and recently published in AER (May 2014). Notably, it’s a purely descriptive work. The authors examine the evolution, including duration, severity and recovery of real per capita GDP around 100 systemic banking crises. On average, it takes about eight years to reach the pre-crisis level of income; the median is about 6 ½ years. They specifically investigate the 2007-2009 recessions and find only Germany and the US (out of 12 systemic cases) have reached their 2007-2008 peaks in real income after five to six years. Forty-five percent of the episodes recorded double dips. Postwar business cycles are not the relevant comparator for the recent crises in advanced economies.