Bond spreads, forecasting economic growth, and political risk and investment in Africa

As our long list of clients know, ICRG and related PRS data continue to be the gold standard of all political risk data among the scholarly and research communities.   Recently, an IMF Country Report on Italy used our ICRG composite risk scores to determine bond spreads in the euro area, and the Fund’s latest External Sector Reports also used our data in several of the empirical models presented therein. (https://www.imf.org/en/Search#q=ICRG&sort=%40imfdate%20descending

Additionally, with all the attention focused on the future of Africa (notably the Sahel and Niger) our Paris-based researchers sent us some material that confirmed the ICRG’s predictive power on economic growth. (Cf, for example: Mauro (1995); Keefer and Knack (1995); Barro (1997); Easterly and Levin (1997) for some early work in the area)

Finally, we all know that political risk shapes investment flows to emerging markets, but some recent work on the impact of such risks on FDI inflows into Sub-Saharan Africa found that our ICRG risk metrics on corruption, law and order, democratic accountability, and investment profile had the most significant effect on inflows into the Nigerian telecommunications sector. 

(https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/tie.21672)

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