Women's Economic Opportunity Index - Economist Intelligence Unit

Women’s economic opportunityA new global index and rankingPrivate sector credit(% change year on year)25WEO countries20151050-5-10-152003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009Source: IMF, International Financial Statistics.The Index also includes a measure of Private sector credit. Credit growth is generally consideredto reflect a process of financial deepening—credit tends to grow more quickly than GDP as an economydevelops, although the debate still rages over the direction of causality. However, rapid credit growthcan lead to the emergence of sizeable macroeconomic imbalances and surging asset prices, subsequentlyfollowed by corrections, busts or outright financial crises—as evidenced by the most recent globalfinancial and economic crisis, which hit boom countries in Europe and the US particularly hard. For thisreason, we have banded this indicator to reflect both risk (unsustainable levels of credit that could resultin macroeconomic instability) as well as poor financing conditions (low levels of credit availability).27© Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2010