Just ordered a few seconds ago . I put in the code but I don ' t think it applied it . <| sep |> The short , correct answer is yes . There may be measurement issues that make measured world net debt differ from zero , but they will be small . A useful analogy the world net trade deficit , which must be zero because nobody ' s trading with Mars . Perhaps a few examples are in order ? If A promises to pay B $ X one year from now , then A has a debt of $ X and B has an asset of $ X . Deposit and lending rates don ' t really come into it . Time doesn ' t really come into it , either . A debt by one party is an asset to another party , whether we call those parties individuals or firms or banks or even governments or whatever . For a simple example of how to think about this stuff , see l a n d i s a c l o s e d e c o n o m y o ffourpeoplealanowesbrenda 100 brendaowescarol 100 d avidneitherborrowsnolends . html The article is about representative agent models , but the substantive issue he discusses is models of debt and , throughout , hammers home the notion that average and aggregate net debt must be zero .