Is corporate debt a ticking time bomb?

Corporate debt

Rapid releveraging following the financial crisis has seen the amount of corporate debt issued rise to dangerous levels. But is it a disaster waiting to happen?

Global growth has gathered pace in the last several years, but so too has the accumulation of debt by governments and corporates alike. The financial crisis may have been fuelled by debt but, since 2010, the corporate non-financial debt to GDP ratio has continued to balloon to reach 82% of GDP, according to the Federal Reserve's Flow of Funds data. This escalation in debt was the subject of the recently released 16th Geneva Report, which is aptly entitled Deleveraging? What Deleveraging? Written by esteemed academics including Morgan Stanley's chief UK economist, Vincent Reinhart,...