January 2, 2019
Pedestrians in the snow in Tokyo, Japan: the country is one of the top three borrowers in the world (photo: Morio Taga/Newscom)
Until recently, we had a partial view of global debt. Our new update to the IMFs Global Debt Database, first made public in May 2018, now fills even more of the gaps. We have compiled data on public and private debt for 190 countries, dating back to 1950, which now includes the latest numbers for 2017.
We make these data free and publicly available for all to use because we believe transparency can help create better public policy.
The long view
In the past, we had detailed information about some bigger economies, such as the United States and Japan, but existing databases either cover…
Read the full article at: https://blogs.imf.org/2019/01/02/new-data-on-global-debt/