The temptation for more protectionism has to be resisted. National reactions that try to hinder international capital flows or prevent foreign activities from being carried out in an efficient and fair manner weill reduce the benefits that the international economic cooperation has brought to...

We use a unique dataset of bond downgrades from a niche rating company that has been found to be reacting faster to publicly available information than its competitors. Using regime-switching models we propose risk measures to quantify stock return disturbances (distress costs) associated with...