‘Unsustainable’ debt needs more thought – BoE’s Broadbent

Sustainable debt levels can differ between economies, and may not be observable – deputy governor

ben-broadbent-2
Ben Broadbent, Bank of England
Bank of England

One of the Bank of England’s deputy governors has said that net levels of household debt are not a good guide to whether it is “unsustainable”.

“That doesn’t mean the level of debt doesn’t matter,” said Ben Broadbent on January 24. “But it may matter only relative to some sustainable threshold, one that’s not directly observable and that can vary.”

But, he argued, “the precise terms, and therefore the riskiness of a given quantity of debt, are not exactly the same in every country”.  In the

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