Rising government debt levels will cause turbulence in the global economy and financial markets unless political leaders start tackling them soon, the body that advises the world’s central banks has warned.
High levels of sovereign borrowing were “one of the biggest threats, if not the biggest threat going forward for the global economy”, Claudio Borio, head of the monetary and economic department of the Bank for International Settlements, told reporters this week.
A recent spike in the cost of insuring against default of US Treasuries and a rise in French government borrowing costs were “signs that financial markets realise they are going to have to absorb this increased volume of government debt”, he added.