Since 1979, Institutional Investor has been asking senior economists and risk analysts to rate individual country creditworthiness, and then compiling their responses to determine country credit ratings. The countries have done their share of shuffling in the overall ranking throughout the years, and for the first time, in March 2007, they saw the U.S. dip out of the top ten among the world's most creditworthy countries.
Dig deeper into the rankings by comparing countries' credit ratings by Region or by viewing countries ordered by how much their credit score has Increased or Decreased over the past six months or year.
How the Ratings Are Compiled The Country Credit ratings developed by Institutional Investor are based on information provided by senior economists and sovereign-risk analysts at leading global banks and money management and securities firms. The respondents have graded each country on a scale of zero to 100, with 100 representing the least chance of default. We also asked participants to rank ten political, economic and financial indicators in order of their importance for each region and for selected countries. Participants' responses were weighted according to their institutions' assets. Names of respondents are kept strictly confidential.
The September 2007 Country Credit ranking was compiled by Associate Editor John Livingstone under the guidance of Director of Research Operations Group Sathya Rajavelu and Senior Editor Jane B. Kenney.