But not for the first time in Europe's crisis it may be pressure from the markets that decides who will lead the world's eighth largest economy.

BBC: Italy: Last days of Mario Monti

The markets apparently regard me as a worse credit risk than the government of the world's eighth largest economy - largely because individuals have a sorrier history in general of repaying what they owe than the public sectors of first-rank developed economies.

BBC: Who would you lend to �C Italy or Peston?

As insular Brazil--the world's eighth-largest economy--opens to the globe, other family-owned companies there are selling their operations wholesale to foreign firms.

FORBES: Brazil's TV Titans

The race is receiving a lot of early attention because California, the world's eighth-largest economy and America's biggest, remains in a dire condition.

ECONOMIST: The California governor's race

Nigeria is sub-Saharan Africa's second-biggest economy after South Africa's and the world's eighth-largest oil exporter, yet the continent's most populous country (with 140m-plus citizens) has yet to fulfil its economic potential.

ECONOMIST: Doubts persist about Nigeria��s banks

That's equal to one-eighth of the GDP of the U.S. economy, the world's largest.

CNN: THE E-TAIL REVOLUTION

Hand-picked by the charmistatic two-term president Lula da Silva, Dilma will take the reins of an economy that has been growing at about 7% in 2010 and has become the eighth largest in the world.

FORBES: Names You Need to Know in 2011: Dilma Rousseff

In 2009, the lender took on the largest economy in the region, Indonesia, when it bought Bank Internasional Indonesia, that nation's eighth-largest lender by assets.

WSJ: Maybank Spreads Its Arms Across Southeast Asia