Economic collapse

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An economic collapse is a devastating breakdown of a national, regional, or territorial economy.

A full or near-full economic collapse is often quickly followed by months, years, or even decades of economic depression, social chaos, and civil unrest. Usually this is eventually corrected at least in part by recovery measures implemented by the government, although some economists (i.e. the Austrian School, in particular Ludwig von Mises) believe that often government intervention and over-regulation of the economy can lead to the conditions for collapse. The most obvious of these examples is the 1929 Stock Market Crash. During the 1980s, the Eastern Bloc experienced a decade-long period of stagnation, stagflation, and eventual collapse from which it never would recover, culminating with revolutions and the fall of communist regimes throughout Central and Eastern Europe and eventually in the Soviet Union.