Government debt
The total obligations of a state towards its creditors, domestic and foreign alike.
How to read the number
Structure matters more than size: which currency, what maturity, and owed to whom. Domestic debt in one's own currency and external debt in someone else's are different kinds of danger.
When the metric lies
Guarantees issued to state-owned companies frequently sit outside the headline figure, yet in a crisis the budget pays them.
Also known as: public debt