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For historical country risk data please visit the Euromoney Country risk website |
For this, our 27th ranking of the world’s countries by creditworthiness, we have altered the scoring slightly. We have included a measure of per capita income into the score given for economic performance. This has boosted the ranking of a number of countries – especially smaller ones -which were previously penalized because little data was available on their economic performance (see methodology).
The change has exaggerated a trend which has been increasingly noticeable over the last two years. Bigger emerging-market economies have fallen in the ranking as the market has lost confidence. None has fared worse in the last 12 months than Russia. In our September poll, following last August’s domestic debt default and devaluation of the rouble, Russia fell from 78 in the poll to 127. Since then it has fallen further to 168 as perceptions of its riskiness have increased. Our poll now ranks it a shakier place to invest than Sudan, Armenia and the Central African Republic.
Once again our ranking reveals itself to be a leading – not a lagging – indicator of risk. Brazil falls but most of the fall came before it gave in to pressure to devalue its currency in January. It fell from 61 in September 1997 to 70 a year later.
The countries gaining at the expense of Brazil, Russia and other crisis-ridden giants tend to be smaller countries in underdeveloped continents. The Maldives, the Seychelles, Gambia and the Solomon Islands are among those who have shot up the rankings this time. That is partly because we now have better information about them, but it also reflects the ability of many small, well-run developing countries to avoid the worst of the emerging-market crisis. Research by Miranda Crowell.
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For historical country risk data please visit the Euromoney Country risk website |
