Curb Your Debts to Prepare for the Next Pandemic, Rajan Tells US

  • Possible future crises mean big borrowings are a vulnerability
  • ‘This is certainly a message for’ US, former IMF official says

Raghuram Rajan

Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg
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High public debt can’t be left to fester in the US and its peers in a world that is prone to more pandemics than before, former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan said.

Speaking to reporters in Rome, the one-time chief economist of the International Monetary Fund warned that countries that keep swelling existing mountains of borrowings leave themselves exposed for when the next emergency hits them.