The early 1990s recession describes the period of economic downturn affecting much of the Western world in the early 1990s. The impacts of the recession contributed in part to the 1992 U.S. presidential election victory of Bill Clinton over incumbent president George H. W. Bush. The recession also included the resignation of Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, the reduction of active companies by 15% and unemployment up to nearly 20% in Finland, civil disturbances in the United Kingdom and the growth of discount stores in the United States and beyond. Primary factors believed to have led to the recession include the following: restrictive monetary policy enacted by central banks, primarily in response to inflation concerns, the loss of consumer and business confidence as a result of the 1990 oil price shock, the end of the Cold War and the subsequent decrease in defense spending, the savings and loan crisis and a slump in office construction resulting from overbuilding during the 1980s. The US economy returned to 1980s level growth by 1993 and global GDP growth by 1994. North America United States Canada Canada's economy is considered to have been in recession for two full years in the early 1990s, specifically from April 1990 to April 1992. Canada's recession began about four months before that of the US, and was deeper, likely because of higher inflationary pressures in Canada, which prompted the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates to levels 5 to 6 percentage points higher than the corresponding rates in the US by early 1990. Canada's economy began to weaken in the second quarter of 1989 as sharp cutbacks in manufacturing output reduced real GDP growth to about 0.3% for each of the last three quarters of the year. Despite GDP growth being minimal, employment growth Canada-wide remained moderate throughout 1989 (although Ontario had a decline in employment in 1989) and there was a solid growth spurt (0.8%) in the first quarter of 1990. In April 1990, economic activity and employment both began substantial declines with the largest drops in real GDP, 1.2%, and employment, 1.1%, occurring in the first quarter of 1991. Both real GDP and employment bounced back in the second quarter of 1991, but then for a full year there was virtually no change in real GDP while employment levels continued to drop as most industries continued to cut output. Only in April 1992 did total