By Samba Mbaye and Marialuz Moreno Badia

January 2, 2019

Pedestrians in the snow in Tokyo, Japan: the country is one of the top three borrowers in the world (photo: Morio Taga/Newscom)

Until recently, we had a partial view of global debt. Our new update to the IMF’s Global Debt Database, first made public in May 2018, now fills even more of the gaps. We have compiled data on public and private debt for 190 countries, dating back to 1950, which now includes the latest numbers for 2017.