Geneva Report - Debt: The Eye of the Storm

Web Seminar in cooperation with the SAFE Policy Center and the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR).

17. Feb 2022 (via Zoom)

Zur Veranstaltung

Geneva Report
Debt: The Eye of the Storm


Moritz Schularick,
Professor of Economics at Sciences Po Paris and the University of Bonn,
Director of the MacroFinance Lab

Moderator: Jan Pieter Krahnen,
SAFE Director and Goethe University

The 24th Geneva Report on the World Economy explores the geo-economic risks entailed by record-high debt in the world economy. Even before the pandemic, public and private sector debt in advanced and emerging-market economies had surged to unprecedented highs in the past four decades. This debt boom is the flip side of the surge in gross savings and the multiplication of financial wealth experienced in recent decades.

Against this background, the Geneva Report studies the outlook for public, household, and corporate debt. Special chapters deal with the outlook for the Chinese economy and inflationary risks. The overall picture that the report paints is not one of doom and gloom: Fears about zombification of corporates in advanced economies are likely overblown, and households in many rich countries deleveraged after the 2008 crash. With a turn in the global interest rate cycle imminent, the largest risks are concentrated in emerging economies where household and corporate debts have risen sharply. Chinas transition from financial boom to bust is a particular risk factor. Policymakers in Beijing and elsewhere are facing enormous challenges, and mistakes could happen and spill over onto innocent bystanders in a globalized economy.

Referenten

Moritz Schularick
Moritz Schularick is a Professor of Economics at the University of Bonn, Director of the Macrofinance Lab Bonn, and a Research Professor at New York University. He is an elected member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, member of the executive Board of the Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE), a Research Fellow of CEPR, a Fellow of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, and a regular advisor to central banks, and international organizations. He works at the intersection of macroeconomics and finance, international economics and economic history.


Fenster schliessen