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Looks to me like it's just bad data in the table in Wikipedia. Ireland has a GDP of $499 billion [1]. That would mean an external debt of $228 billion would be

Looks to me like it's just bad data in the table in Wikipedia. Ireland has a GDP of $499 billion [1]. That would mean an external debt of $228 billion would be 46% of GDP, not 700%. I wonder what other numbers are wrong in that table. [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=IE https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?location...

kspacewalk2 4y ago
Another source pitting Ireland's debt to GDP at 56%[1]. This was >100% in 2012, showing how quickly this stat can change when you regain some fiscal discipline and your GDP grows in the meantime. Looks like Ireland actually did proper counter-cyclical fiscal policy[2] during the good times, to help them keep their debt in check during the bad times. How quaint of them. [1] https://tradingeconomics.com/ireland/government-debt-to-gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/ireland/government-debt-to-gdp [2] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Glossary:Counter-cyclical_fiscal_measures https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...