ABSTRACT

The rapid accumulation of private debt is widely viewed as a major risk to financial and economic stability. This article systematically and comprehensively assesses the effect of private debt buildup on economic growth. In the spirit of the existing study that separately examines the effects of two types of private debt – household debt and corporate debt – on growth in advanced economies, we specifically provide new evidence on the growth-private debt nexus in both advanced and emerging market economies (EMEs). Moreover, we construct financial peaks in terms of the speed of debt accumulation rather than crisis dates and find that in both advanced and EMEs, corporate debt buildups cause more financial peaks than household debt buildups. Furthermore, corporate debt-induced financial recessions inflict a bigger damage on output than household debt-induced financial recessions in EMEs. Overall, our evidence suggests that policymakers would do well to closely monitor not only household debt but also corporate debt.

摘要

私人债务的迅速积累被广泛视为金融和经济稳定的主要风险。本文系统而全面地评估了私人债务积累对经济增长的影响。本着现有研究分别考察两类私人债务（家庭债务和公司债务）对发达经济体增长的影响的研究精神，我们特别提供了关于发达经济体和新兴市场经济体增长与私人债务关系的新证据（新兴市场经济体）。此外，我们根据债务积累的速度而非危机日期来构建金融峰值，并发现在发达经济体和新兴市场经济体中，企业债务积累比家庭债务积累导致更多的金融峰值。此外，在新兴市场经济体中，企业债务引发的金融衰退比家庭债务引发的金融衰退对产出造成的损害更大。总体而言，我们的证据表明，政策制定者不仅要密切监测家庭债务，还要密切监测企业债务。