In 2020, we observed the largest one-year debt surge since World War II, with global debt rising to $226 trillion as the world was hit by a global health crisis and a deep recession. Debt was already elevated going into the crisis, but now governments must navigate a world of record-high public and private debt levels, new virus mutations, and rising inflation. Global debt rose by 28 percentage points to 256 percent of GDP, in 2020, according to the latest update of the IMF’s Global Debt Database. Borrowing by governments accounted for slightly more than half of the increase, as the global public debt ratio jumped to ... (full story)