Long-term trends in global credit markets

The Global Credit Project provides the world's most comprehensive historical statistics on credit markets covering 120 advanced and emerging economies going back to 1940. Based on archival and manually collected data, we provide information on outstanding credit by industry and type of household credit. Visit the research page for more details.

Several key insights emerge from the data:

  1. Credit as a share of the economy has risen sharply over the past five decades.
  2. Household debt has boomed globally, while firm credit has remained stable as a share of GDP.
  3. Firm credit has shifted from tradable sectors to construction, real estate, and other non-tradable sectors.

Explore the data

You can explore long-term trends in the composition of credit to the private sector globally or by country below. You can adjust the graph with the drop-down menus. All numbers are outstanding amounts scaled over GDP. Choose between a simple line chart, a stacked line chart, or an area chart showing shares of credit.

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All Countries
19571960196319661969197219751978198119841987199019931996199920022005200820112014Year00.150.30.450.60.750.91.05Credit / GDP
  • Total