1  See Carmen M. Rienhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff, “Growth in a Time of Debt,” available at http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/rogoff/files/Growth_in_Time_Debt.pdf: “...whereas the link between growth and debt seems relatively weak at ‘normal’ debt levels, median growth rates for countries with public debt over 90 percent of GDP are roughly one percent lower than otherwise; average (mean) growth rates are several percent lower.
Surprisingly, the relationship between public debt and growth is remarkably similar across emerging markets and advanced economies” (page 2). 2  BIS Review 88/2010  First, consider the chain of exposures to the credit risk – from the holders of those government securities, to their creditors, and their creditors’ creditors, and so on.