The structure and sustainability of China’s debt
利用新的综合债务数据集，描述中国债务结构演变，并评估国内外债务可持续性，发现中央政府和外部债务可持续，但地方政府、非金融企业和影子银行存在风险。
In this paper, using a new comprehensive debt set, we describe the evolution of China’s debt structure in detail, and then we assess the sustainability of China’s domestic and external debt by employing a fiscal space framework, the threshold estimation, and the debt service-capacity measure. The empirical results suggest that, China’s public debt from the central government and external debt are sustainable, whereas the highly indebted local governments, non-financial corporations and the shadow banks could lead to potential risk for China’s financial stability. Nevertheless, China’s debt overall is sound and sustainable in the near and medium term.