To see nominal numbers of debt increasing won’t tell us much, so it is better to look at debt expressed as percentage of GDP. Also we need to compare current growth to something, so I am comparing growth in 10 years until the most recent data (2008-2018) with growth in 10 years until the Great Recession (1998-2008).
One thing is seen at once – the governments in most countries are getting more debt than before.
Corporations and household are increasing their debt in more countries than decreasing, but the rate of increase is slower now and more countries are decreasing than before. We’re less crazy than in those crazy times.
What: Debt made of loans and debt securities expressed in % of GDP.
When: 1998 – 2018
Where: 103 countries of the world. Iceland was removed from the chart and they know why. (Because of extreme numbers, debt levels reaching over 700%). Also, there might be some bias in the data, because not all countries have data for all periods and all debt receivers.
Source: BIS
