What might trigger the next financial crisis and recession? Private debt tops the list, explains Steve Keen, an economics professor who heads the School of Economics, Politics and History at Kingston University. It’s a potent threat, in part because debt has increased since the 2008 financial crisis and interest rates appear poised to trend higher in the years ahead. Yet the risk bound up with private debt is widely underappreciated in the economics profession, Keen explains in his recent book: Can We Avoid Another Financial Crisis? “Even after the [last] crisis, mainstream economists still reject out of hand arguments that the aggregate level and rate of change of debt matters,” he writes. History suggests otherwise, Keen insists, citing the empirical record as proof. The Capital Spectator recently asked Keen for a summary of why debt matters for the business cycle and how the US and other economies currently rank on this critical risk factor.
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