That line about neither a borrower nor a lender be.

With apologies to one that William Shakespeare,

the economy just doesn't work like that.

From American public media,

this is Marketplace.

In Los Angeles, I'm Kai Rizzdahl.

It is Thursday.

Today, this one is the 26th of February.

Good as always to have you along, everybody.

This economy, this one specifically the U.S., the global economy to almost all other countries as well,

run on debt. Credit, national or sovereign debt, the bills, bonds, and notes that governments sell.

Individual debt, car loans and mortgages. Corporate debt as well, because companies sell bonds,

too, you know. Increasingly, though, companies are trying to get their hands on more capital by going to what are called private credit markets, borrowing money from big

investors or money managers rather than actual banks. According to the Federal Reserve,

the private credit market has exploded since the 2008 financial crisis. Exploded is my word, not theirs. It's

five times bigger now than it was back then. Somewhere near the two trillion dollar mark globally.

The last couple of weeks, though, the private credit market has gone a little bit sideways,

and economists and analysts aren't totally sure what to make of it. Marketplace's Daniel Ackerman starts us off.

After the financial crisis, regulation forced big banks to tighten up their lending practices.

Elizabeth Defantenei of Duke University says that made it harder for some companies to get loans.

And so this has really created an opening for private credit funds to step in.

She says private lending can be riskier than bank loans or corporate bonds, but Laura Veldcamp of

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