The policy response to the subprime crisis started in earnest after Lehman's failure in mid September 2008, accelerated after February 2009, and had become very large by September 2009. Governments have relied on a portfolio of intervention tools, but the biggest commitments and outlays have been in the form of debt and asset guarantees, while purchases of bad assets have been very limited. Announcements directed at the banking system as a whole (general) and at specific banks (specific) were priced by the markets. General announcements tend to be associated with positive returns and specific announcements with negative ones. Moreover, general announcements exert cross-country spillovers but are perceived by the home-country banks as subsidies boosting the competitive advantage of foreign