When it comes to firms, as the International Monetary Fund has recently noted, South Africa is one of a few emerging markets where corporate debt stocks have declined since 2007.6 One lesson from this is that South Africa does not have a burgeoning private-sector debt problem which could soon be revealed as an important vulnerability.
Another lesson is that episodes of rapid debt accumulation, even when they do not end in crisis, commonly give way to extended periods of weak growth. From a private-sector perspective, this is not a useful depiction of South African conditions, even if it is accurate for other emerging markets.