First published: ft.com, 13/01/2010
The sustainability of sovereign debt hangs heavily over bond markets, and the prospects for economic and financial stability.
Since 2007, OECD government deficits have risen by 7 per cent of GDP to just over 8 per cent, and debt, excluding contingent liabilities, has risen by about 25 per cent of GDP to just over 100 per cent.
The biggest increases have occurred in Iceland, Ireland, the US, Japan, the UK, and Spain. There is no peacetime precedent for the current speed and scale of public debt accumulation and it is difficult to assess the social tolerance for high debt levels, and for the pain of protracted fiscal restraint. In several EU member states, the threshold has already been breached. The spectre of sovereign default….more
