Contagion – now a word heard often in relation to economic financial crisis

By Ron Doyle

When I wrote a series of blog posts, starting in July 2010, “contagion” was a word seldom heard in a financial context. Six months later, it’s a buzz word in the papers every day and used in the same context as in my blog posts.

The premise for "contagion" is that large sovereign debts can not be contained to one or even a group of countries. The infection spreads to other countries and financial institutions. Brian Milner in his Globe and Mail article of November 30, 2010, Contagion spreads to euro zone banks, and Rex Merrifield, in his Reuters UK story, Euro zone periphery hammered as default fears rise - also published in the Globe's Report on Business - clearly explain how the contagion is likely to spread further.

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Global Economic Trade Issues Affect Diverse and Disparate Companies, Part one in a three Part Series: CONTAGION

By Ron Doyle

What does “contagion” mean in the context of trade credit insurance, the global economy and credit risk? Contagion is defined as a tendency to spread – as in the spreading of a harmful idea or practice.

The world financial news each day has many stories about different sectors of the economy: banking, mining, manufacturing, etc. When reading these items, it is often difficult to see how, or if, the problems in one geographic area or industrial sector will affect a seemingly unrelated company in another region.

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