The categorization of Eurozone countries into core, semi-core and periphery, which was consolidated during the debt crisis, seems to a certain extent to have lost its importance after the pandemic, its analysts find Bank of America. The increase in deficits in the core countries and the slowdown in their relative growth supports this narrative.

But also in the periphery, countries such as Portugal have experienced aggressive credit rating upgrades to category A. At the same time, semi-core countries are seeing their ratings downgraded, with the outlook largely negative, they note the analysts.

Bank of America ran an exercise looking at key macroeconomic indicators that rating agencies use to determine how close or far each country is to the core, semi-core and periphery.

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