The world’s national debts, from safest to most risky
Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale
Stay up to date:
New Growth Models
Bank of America’s Transforming World Atlas has loads of lovely infographics in it, but one of the most colourful is a map of the world’s riskiest sovereign debt.
The map uses the prices of credit-default swaps, which are derivatives that pay out if a borrower defaults.
Here’s the map:
Sovereign credit-default swaps have been used as a type of insurance against sovereign governments not paying back the money they owe. As with any insurance product, the more expensive it is, the more likely the event you’re insuring against will happen soon.
Venezuelan debt is by far the most risky, costing twice as much as Greek or Ukrainian debt to insure.
The graphic also shows just how far Spain and Ireland have come. The market thinks their debt is pretty risk-free, with lower CDS spreads than Italy or Portugal. The Spanish economy is going through a bit of a revival after suffering a devastating housing crash and unemployment crisis.
This article is published in collaboration with Business Insider. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.
To keep up with Agenda subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Author: Ben Moshinsky is a finance reporter at Business Insider.
Don't miss any update on this topic
Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.
License and Republishing
World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
Related topics:
The Agenda Weekly
A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda
You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in our emails. For more details, review our privacy policy.
More on Equity, Diversity and InclusionSee all
JoAnn Stonier, Lauren Woodman and Karla Yee Amezaga
September 11, 2024
Joe Myers
September 6, 2024
Naoko Tochibayashi and Mizuho Ota
August 30, 2024
Madeleine North
August 29, 2024
Kate Whiting
August 20, 2024
Kate Whiting
August 15, 2024