Word: overhang
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...most serious impact of these bad loans isn't the cost of writing them off. Rather it's that the borrowing countries are afflicted with nearly untreatable cases of what economists call "debt overhang," a fiscal disease by which loan repayments inhibit every sort of national economic activity. That makes the markets much less attractive to export-hungry U.S. companies. Debt relief, which at first blush looks like charity, is mostly a way to stimulate growth...
Take Mozambique, from which I just returned. It has a huge debt overhang that deters private investment as well as an even greater social-resource gap that prevents spending even as much as $10 per person on health care or providing schools for the next generation...
...faster in the U.S. than in Europe--and certainly than in Japan--for this year at least. Asian countries are recovering rapidly from their 1997-98 debacle; forecasts for expansion this year range from 3.4% in the Philippines to 6.8% in Malaysia. But Asian economies must reduce a huge overhang of debt before they can siphon away any investment now going...