The International Political Risk Service Group Ltd. is a private company that provides analysis of political risk for 140 countries in the world. The data are organized into two groups. First group of data are country reports that are concentrated mainly on the risk in the business environment and economic conditions of the country.

Several issues related to economic policy and regulatory framework are referred to in the report. The type of data provided in this way is given in the appendix for about 100 countries. This type of data provided in this report is not very relevant for the measurement of democracy. The more relevant for the purpose of the measuring democracy are the data provided in the International Country Risk Guide. The data in the Guide are updated on the monthly basis and the number of countries included is 140. The only problem is the fact that the data are accessible only to subscribers. However the sample report for September 2001 is available for free and the data can be assessed from it. The ICRG assesses risk on the basis of the three groups of risk components. Those risk components are grouped into three Risk Categories – Political, Economic and Financial. The political risk category is composed of 12 components and the financial and the economic risk categories of 5 each. The sum of the risk scores of all elements of one component determines the risk score for that component, and the risk score of each component determines the overall risk rating. Somewhat arbitrarily, the scores of components are weighted and then added so that the political risk category participates by 1/2 in the final score, while other two participate by

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