Zombie countries: A threat to the global financial system?
Authors:   Togliatti State University, Kurilov Kirill Yu. 
Published: February 2023

The worldwide pandemic of coronavirus infection has caused a set of problems, which can be divided into two large groups. The first group is problems in world health, related to the shock of most national systems caused by the number of cases, deaths, shortages of medicines and vaccines. The second group is problems in the economy due to employment, shortages of raw materials and components. The pandemic led to a drop in people's income, as well as several problems in the activities of economic entities - businesses and households. Problems occurred in small and medium-sized enterprises as well as in large companies and multinational corporations. The biggest victims of the pandemic were the airline company Boeing, the travel company Carmival, Delta Air Lines, and the oil and gas company ExxonMobil. This caused the value of their debt financial instruments to fall, increased the cost of borrowing for these companies, and could eventually lead to their bankruptcy. The bankruptcy of several large multinational corporations could have caused irreparable damage to the world economy and so most governments provided financing to large economic entities by giving concessional loans and borrowings. Also, the U.S. Federal Reserve announced a program of buyback of financial assets in global financial markets. At the same time, the financial situation in the countries, which provide such assistance to economic entities, has also deteriorated. First, it wass expressed in growth of national debt. According to the IMF, the global public debt tripled over a 20-year period, rising from $20 trillion in the 2000s to a record $69.3 trillion by 2020. The ratio of global debt to global GDP was 82%. Consequently, to pay for this public debt, it is necessary to give more than half of global GDP for the year. And for several advanced economies, this figure already exceeds the size of annual GDP. So, the likelihood of these countries paying their debts in the future has been significantly reduced. In fact, there is the emergence of “zombie” countries, which even in the distant future will not be able to repay their obligations but will continue to exist as borrowers in the financial market. Most of these countries have the highest credit ratings. At the same time rating agencies overlook the actual inability of the governments of these countries to repay the debts incurred at some point in the future. High credit ratings and the existing investment strategy of big bond purchasers make it possible for them to continue their successful existence due to continuing borrowings in the financial market. However, over a sufficiently long period of time this situation could lead to a catastrophic financial collapse of mutual defaults, defaults, and bankruptcies especially since the assets of zombie countries are actively bought by investors and are seen as a highly reliable liquid asset. In this regard, it is relevant to assess the overall situation of the public debt of borrowing countries, classifying them into groups and describing the properties of each group.