This Is How The World's Most Important Economies Stacked Up In 2011

The Bank of Montreal just came out with new economic report cards for the world's most important economies in 2011.

Their rankings prized low inflation, low unemployment, and low budget deficits highly, while penalizing countries with ratings below AAA. Here's the bank's complete methodology:

The index is constructed by subtracting inflation (or deflation), the jobless rate, and the budget and current account deficits (as a share of GDP) from 100. If a country runs a budget surplus or a current account surplus, these are treated as zero (no bonus points for hoarding large surpluses). Finally, we deduct a further 3 points for every notch a country is rated below AAA. So, a country with no unemployment, no inflation, twin surpluses, and a triple-A credit rating would score 100.

But these report cards aren't exactly indicative of future performance. The highest rating ever went to Japan in 1988. Guess who won first place this time around...

Greece

Inflation: 3.2%

Jobless Rate: 16.6%

Budget Deficit (% of GDP): 5.9%

Current Account Deficit (% of GDP): 8.6%

Overall Grade: 11.6

Source: Bank of Montreal

Portugal

Inflation: 3.6%

Jobless Rate: 12.5%

Budget Deficit (% of GDP): 5.9%

Current Account Deficit (% of GDP): 8.0%

Overall Grade: 43.0

Source: Bank of Montreal

Ireland

Inflation: 1.2%

Jobless Rate: 14.1%

Budget Deficit (% of GDP): 10.3%

Current Account Deficit (% of GDP): surplus

Overall Grade: 55.8

Source: Bank of Montreal

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