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World Bank: Don’t Blame the Pandemic For the Global South Debt Crisis

by Eric Olander

Two leading World Bank economists issued a stinging rebuke against policymakers in developing countries who have blamed the worsening debt crisis on the pandemic. 

“The seeds were sown long before COVID-19,” wrote Marcello Estevão and Sebastian Essl in a World Bank blog post published on Tuesday. “Between 2011 and 2019, public debt in a sample of 65 developing countries increased by 18% of GDP on average–and by much more in several cases.”

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