Determinant Effects of Political and Economic Factors on Country Risk: An Evidence from the EU Countries

Abstract

The paper deals with an analysis of political and economic factors influencing the country risk. We examinate economical and political factors that are related to the country risk. We provide assessment based on country the economic and financial difficulties that countries face, as well as on the investment environments. At the beginning of the paper we provide the framework for understanding the nature of country risk, we discuss ideas of renowned authors from different perspectives in regard to political and economic variables that might affect country risk. The main contribution of this paper is an analysis consisting of testing the significance of selected political and economic factors on the risk of selected European countries based on an econometric model using panel regression. We conclude the GDP per capita, inflation, unemployment, gross government debt, current account balance, international investment position and political control index of corruption and the rule of law are the main factors influencing country risk in our analysis. Based on the regression analysis we select groups of countries with highest similarieties and analyse them in detail.