The Ten Countries With The Riskiest Sovereign Debt (PHOTOS)
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The Telegraph reports that the Bank for International Settlements is warning investors of a looming sovereign debt crisis in the developed world. "The aftermath of the financial crisis is poised to bring a simmering fiscal problem in industrial economies to the boiling point," the institution wrote in a study called "The Future of Public Debt."
But for a number of nations, the boiling point may already have arrived. Dubai and several European countries (namely the 'PIIGS,' which stands for Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) are already spooking markets with their paralyzing fiscal troubles. And according to the quarterly Sovereign Risk Report, published by the credit research firm CMA, some developing nations may be perilously close to insolvency.
CMA ranks countries by something called their 'cumulative probability of default' (CPD), which "quantifies the probability of a country being unable to honor its debt obligations over a given time period" -- in this case, five years. It assesses CPD across all sovereign debt issuers to get a sense of where the world's most unhealthy debt lies -- and where default may be most likely.
Check out the 10 countries with the riskiest sovereign debt:
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First Posted: 06/09/10 06:12 AM ET Updated: 05/25/11 05:05 PM ET