【英文】经济与商业研究中心报告：中国将在2037年超越美国，成为全球最大经济体（226页）

英文研究报告 2024年01月24日 08:53 管理员

The US economy is sustaining growth but only at the cost of borrowing and continuing to plan to borrow. Its debt-to-GDP ratio has already exceeded the previous peak of 119%, reached just after World War 2, hitting 123% in Q3 2023 at the time of writing. No one is quite certain when the debt ratio will become unsustainable, but equally, there is no serious economic theory that does not postulate that this will happen at some point. Historically, the US Federal Government has never fully defaulted on its debt, but it has limited its repayments to paper money rather than paying in gold or silver as had been promised on four occasions. It is not exactly clear what a default might mean. The bond market fears catastrophe, but while it would be for those in that market, it is less clear whether it would be equally disastrous for the rest of the economy. Most economies that have defaulted have managed to recover surprisingly quickly, though normally from a lower base. But, there has never been a default of an entity anywhere near the scale of the US Federal Government. Our rough estimate of the scale of the default is that it would be perhaps about a hundred times more serious than the Great Financial Crisis.