International Business: The New Realities, 5th Edition

The Global Debt Crisis

1. 9.6 Understand the global debt crisis.

Growing imbalances in the finances of numerous national governments is an emergent crisis in the international monetary and financial environment.20 Exhibit 9.5 shows the amount of gross government debt as a percentage of GDP for selected countries. Debt is especially high in Japan and Greece. In these countries, as well as in Belgium, Italy, and the United States, gross government debt exceeds 100 percent of each nation’s GDP. National debt in total dollar terms is highest in the United States, but the indicator is less useful than debt as a percentage of GDP. The reason is that countries can pay down their debt more easily if it is a smaller percentage of their annual GDP. For ...