An Empirical Economic Development Based Model of International Banking Risk and Risk Scoring

The paper reconsiders the relationship between international banking risk and economic development. It is shown quite conclusively that the significant explanatory variables of international banking risk scores (when international banking risk is used as a proxy for country risk) are the income elasticity of demand for imports (when the latter is used as an indicator of economic growth and development), the phase of industrialization (based on country per capita income), and certain historical economic and financial variables (external debt levels and international bank size according to total assets). The investigation arrives at a new approach to risk scoring systems and models.