Finding data behind sovereign ratings of nations

A live record of an introductory lecture to check economic headlines on its underlying financial data. How do we determine important facts? Where can I find the databases the library offers? How do I find it at the library web site? And a short simulation in finding rating data.

Web lecture credit ratings of nations

In order to view the lecture, it is necessary to be either student or researcher/ teacher at the VU.

The Euro support fund (ESFS, European System of Financial Supervisors) and the Papandreou effect

The positive effect of the hard bargained,(but half heartedly taken, measures of expanding the ESFS to € 1000 billion was short lived. The Greek PM saw himself facing an angry population, when they struck at the heart of their national celebration, Friday 28th October (OHI Day). This apparently lead to what we refer to in the Netherlands as "panic football", when he announced to call for a referendum to the Greek people.

Two days later I saw a headline that the cost of this announced amounted to more than $ 1800 billion, world wide, as expressed in the MSCI World Index.

How to find these figures?
Datastream provides figures on this index.
The easiest way is to open the navigator en perform a free text search: "msci world index". The best bet is MSCI WORLD U$ (mnemonic MSWRLD$).
The following data types provide figures, but MSPI  (Price Index is what we want)

MSFI, MSTY, MSMC, MSIG,  MSLE,  MSSG, MSET, MSCM, MSNR, MSNE, MSPI, MSFE, MSSE,
MSRI, MSEG, MSTG