Is bank- versus market-based financing different in its attitudes towards Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG … bank monitoring and scrutiny. The Social and Governance components, in particular, matter. Furthermore, firms suffering … higher numbers of negative ESG reputation shocks are less likely to continue to rely on bank credit in response to lenders …

We study a unique experiment to examine the importance of rating agencies' private information for bank shareholders …. On July 20, 2011, Fitch Ratings refined their bank standalone ratings, which measure intrinsic financial strength, from a … standalone rating refinement was cleanly limited to bank shareholders. We find evidence suggesting that the refinement resulted …