新冠肺炎疫情冲击下,全球债务规模大幅扩张,整体债务负担再创历史新高。与2008年全球金融危机相比,本轮债务积累潮来势更凶、幅度更大。从债务规模的扩张幅度看,政府部门的债务积累速度快于私人部门,发达经济体快于发展中经济体。后疫情时代,需要重点关注三大风险:一是部分新兴市场和发展中国家的主权债务风险。目前已有一半低收入国家陷入债务困境,疫苗分配不均、全球复苏不同步、美联储退出宽松政策等因素可能导致危机国家的范围进一步扩大。二是企业部门的破产率可能在政府退出逆周期政策后迅速上升,各国当局需要慎重选择逆周期政策退出时机。三是企业违约潮还将对有关金融机构造成负面冲击。发达经济体需要高度重视非银行金融部门的脆弱性,发展中经济体更需要警惕全球复苏不均衡所引发的资本外流和货币贬值风险。
Hit by the COVID-19 pandemic,the world has witnessed large debt expansion and historically high leverage ratios. Compared to the 2008 global financial crisis,this episode of debt accumulation did not only catch the world by surprise but also came in overwhelmingly large scale. From the perspective of debt accumulation scale during 2019-2020,the public sector has raised more debt than the private sector,and the developed economies more than developing economies. While countercyclical policies are the main driver for public debt accumulation,differences of monetary and fiscal stimulus between developed and developing economies have resulted in much larger debt growth rate of the former than the latter. Three risks are of key concern in the post pandemic era. The first risk to watch out for is the sovereign debt distress in certain emerging and developing economies. Currently,nearly 50% low-income countries have already been in debt distress. The number of distressed countries may increase as a result of the uneven distribution of vaccine,unbalanced recovery and the exit of monetary expansion of the United States. The second risk is the increase of firm bankruptcy rate as the governments gradually exit countercyclical policies. All economies face the challenge of choosing the appropriate timing of unwinding pandemic related policy stimulus. The third risk lies in the financial sector that links with bankrupted agents. Developed economies should be concern of the vulnerabilities in their non-bank financial sector,while developing economies face high risk of capital outflow and currency depreciation as the world continues to follow the unbalanced recovery trajectory.
Keywords: | Global DebtRisk AnalysisPolicy Response |