Tag Archives: EU

In Focus: Government Debt

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Political InsightA map showing the Europe’s government debt is now featured in the “In Focus” section of Political Insight journal (December 2010, Volume 1, Issue 3). The accompanying article written by Danny Dorling and me explains why the UK’s deficit is particularly high.

Here are the bibliographic details:
EU Government Debt 2010 Thumbnail image

  • Dorling, D. and Hennig, B. D. (2010). In Focus: Government Debt. Political Insight1 (3): 106.
    Article online (Wiley)

More debt maps can be found here.

The content on this page has been created by Benjamin Hennig. Please contact me for further details on the terms of use.

Europe in debt

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People across the worst hit countries by the proposed austerity measures to reduce national debt levels gathered on the streets of many European cities to protest against public spending cuts. The financial crash hugely affected many government across the EU with little signs of a quick recovery of the public debt levels.
The following map shows how Europe is left in deficit two years after Lehman (and that in fact the EURO zone isn’t worse off than EU members without the common currency). There may be signs of recovery, but this picture will certainly stay with us for a while:

Europe in debt: map of government deficit
(click for larger version)

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Capitalism in Crisis?

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The following two maps show the countries of Europe and the World resized according to their total external debt, whereas the colours indicate a country’s debt by gdp ratio. The maps are an outcome of a commissioned work for the Times newspaper, and putting those two slightly different values on one map may raise criticism, even if both values on it’s own make for a good depiction of the current state of the economic world – or the burden that some national governments currently face. Also, the data used must be judged carefully. Not just since Greece went on the global stage with its crisis it is quite obvious that economic statistics do not always reveal the real truth. Having said all that, these maps still draw an impressive picture of the current crisis in Europe and the world:

Map of debt and the debt/gdp ratio in the countries of the European Union 2010(click map for larger view)

(click here for large map)

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European debt levels in 2010

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Alistair Darling is just about to announce the UK’s budget this Wednesday in the run-up to the forthcoming General Election, while the Eurozone countries stew over the fate of Greece and its implications for the European currency. In the reality of a world economic crisis, it’s everyone for himself, and Europe seems far from being a united community.
The following map compares the total debt of the EU-27 countries and the debt’s share of the GDP – revealing some interesting views: In sheer numbers, the PIGS are not alone (Greece, in fact, almost not counting). Eventually, we’re all in the same boat in the sea of gloom (click map for larger view)…

Map of debt and the debt/gdp ratio in the countries of the European Union 2010

The content on this page has been created by Benjamin Hennig. Please contact me for further details on the terms of use.