A working paper issued by Indian Finance Ministry's has developed a new sovereign credit ratings index that provides inter se ranking of various economies across the globe. Named the Comparative Rating Index of Sovereigns (CRIS), it has used standard credit rating data for countries to assess their relative performance over 2007-12. The results arrived at by the paper show major changes in relative ratings of various countries, driven largely by the rapid downgrades of some European economies following the global financial crisis.

The paper concludes: "India's Comparative Rating Index for Sovereigns has improved over the six years from 2007 to 2012 by about 2.98% while its rank moved up from 61st to 55th. The US has gone from the top of the chart to the 13th position though it still improved its CRIS score by 2.12%. Some developed economies like Australia, Canada, Denmark and Germany maintained their sovereign ratings and therefore had a rise in CRIS values. Some of the largest falls were among European economies and Japan. Greece fell by 71 positions, Ireland 68, Iceland 61, Portugal, 53, Spain 36 and Japan 21. BRICS economies show continuous improvement and the global financial crisis does not seem to have impacted them adversely in terms of CRIS scores."