The Latest External Debt Position of European Countries [View article]
Dear David,
there are several incorrect components in this article, and I would like to hear back from you:
Biggest iss with the article is that it uses the "Gross" external debt position of countries, the second matter is that it does not equalize it per GDP size.
In fact, a country may have well a large gross debt and at the same time even a larger investment in other counties' debt- as it is the case for Germany, that in this chart appears as the second largest gross debtor- a useless measure, because Germany is by far the largest holder of foreign debt in Europe, and its net position massively positive. Not he same for the UK: with about the same GDP of Italy (in nominal terms), it has a gross debt about 4 times larger. But this does not matter so much- what s the net debt position of the UK? I am afraid it is most likely worse than Italy, due to the cumulated current account deficit of the UK.
Therefore, we need the chart of the net foreign debt position of countries, and we need it weighted by GDP. At that point, measuring the change over 6 months would make sense.
Finally, Greece is not the poorest country of Europe, surpassing most of eastern European countries and Portugal. This counting GDP per capita both in nominal and purchasing power terms.
The Latest External Debt Position of European Countries [View article]
there are several incorrect components in this article, and I would like to hear back from you:
Biggest iss with the article is that it uses the "Gross" external debt position of countries, the second matter is that it does not equalize it per GDP size.
In fact, a country may have well a large gross debt and at the same time even a larger investment in other counties' debt- as it is the case for Germany, that in this chart appears as the second largest gross debtor- a useless measure, because Germany is by far the largest holder of foreign debt in Europe, and its net position massively positive.
Not he same for the UK: with about the same GDP of Italy (in nominal terms), it has a gross debt about 4 times larger. But this does not matter so much- what s the net debt position of the UK? I am afraid it is most likely worse than Italy, due to the cumulated current account deficit of the UK.
Therefore, we need the chart of the net foreign debt position of countries, and we need it weighted by GDP. At that point, measuring the change over 6 months would make sense.
Finally, Greece is not the poorest country of Europe, surpassing most of eastern European countries and Portugal. This counting GDP per capita both in nominal and purchasing power terms.
I am looking forward to hear more.
Thank you,
Mauro Pretolani