By many measures nonfinancial corporate debt has been increasing as a share of GDP and assets since 2010. As the May Federal Reserve Financial Stability Report explained, high business debt can be a financial stability risk because heavily indebted corporations may need to cut back spending more sharply when shocks occur. Further, when businesses cannot repay their loans, financial institutions and investors incur losses. In this post, we review measures of corporate leverage in the United States. Although corporate debt has soared, concerns about debt growth are mitigated in part by higher corporate cash flows.

从许多方面来看，非金融企业债务占GDP和资产的比例自2010年以来一直在上升。正如美联储5月份发布的《金融稳定报告》(Financial Stability Report)所解释的那样，高企的企业债务可能是一种金融稳定风险，因为当危机发生时，负债累累的企业可能需要更大幅度地削减支出。此外，当企业无法偿还贷款时，金融机构和投资者就会蒙受损失。在这篇文章中，我们回顾了美国公司杠杆率的测量方法。尽管企业债务飙升，但较高的企业现金流在一定程度上缓解了人们对债务增长的担忧。