Contents -- I. Introduction -- II. Methodology and Data -- A. Empirical Model -- B. Policy Response Index -- C. Control Variables -- D. The Instrument -- III. The Results -- A. Results from Baseline Specification -- B. Comparison with Other Results in the Literature -- C. Sensitivity Analysis: Additional Controls -- D. Sensitivity Analysis: Alternative Measures of Crisis Performance -- E. Sensitivity Analysis: Alternative Policy Response Indexes -- F. Fiscal Policy during the Crisis. -- IV. Conclusions -- References -- Text Tables -- 1. Correlation among Crisis Performance Measures -- 2. Construction of the Policy Index -- 3. Crisis Episodes, Policy Response, and Political System -- 4. Cross-Correlations between Political System and Crisis Policies -- 5. Baseline Results -- 6. Additional Control Variables -- 7. Alternative Measures of Crisis Performance -- 8. Alternative Policy Indexes -- 9. Fiscal Policy Response and Political System -- Figure 1. Distribution of Policy Index -- Appendix Tables -- A1. Variable Definitions and Data Sources -- A2. Summary Statistics -- A3. Cross Correlations among Variables.