Best and Worst Lending

The GDP ratio described in the previous post can be used to measure the efficiency of specific lending actions.

The most "efficient" loan made from Liechtenstein, $118000, to The Democratic Republic of the Congo, $300. I would guess that GDP breaks down at both ends of this scale. It's hard to count money when you're laundering it or if you're trying to recover from one of the worst wars in history. The actual ratio may be way off, but still, I'm sure that $25 is a lot more valuable in the Congo than in Liechtenstein.

There are plenty of "inefficient" loans, where someone in a poor country lends to someone in a rich country. Most of these seem to be people who entered the wrong Country. For example, I'm pretty sure there is no "New York, NY Afghanistan". (Google shows some possible explanations, but I'm still going with the theory that the information was entered incorrectly.) Excluding those lenders, the least efficient loan appears to be from Zimbabwe to Peru. If you thought lending from America to America was bad, try lending from a country where people earn the equivalant of $200 a year, to a country where people earn $8400.