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Deleveraging Patterns in the Euro Area Corporate Sector
Report

Deleveraging Patterns in the Euro Area Corporate Sector

ECB, 2014 more...

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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Comprehensive
  • Analytical
  • Scientific

Recommendation

Coming back from the recent recession has been a long, hard slog for many developed economies, particularly Europe’s. Deliberations at the European Central Bank’s headquarters in Frankfurt center on why meager growth persists in the euro zone and how to move beyond it. Given the power and influence of these central bankers, understanding what they are thinking is more important than ever. getAbstract recommends this scholarly but accessible analysis of corporate debt and deleveraging in the EU to executives, bankers, analysts and investors.

Summary

In the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis, euro-zone nonfinancial companies raised their debt ratios from 73% of GDP at the beginning of 2000 to 100% by mid-2008. In the wake of the crisis, EU corporate debt peaked at 105% of GDP in 2009-2010, dropping only a couple of percentage points by the second quarter of 2013. While this might suggest that debt consolidation and deleveraging have been modest, the picture is quite different at the country and sector levels.

While overall leverage has eased only moderately, nations and industries with...

About the Author

The European Central Bank is the monetary authority of the euro zone.