We test if issuers of asset- and mortgage-backed securities receive rating favors from agencies with which they maintain strong business relationships. Controlling for issuer fixed effects and a large set of credit risk determinants, we show that agencies publish better ratings for those issuers...

The electronic trading system Xetra of the German Security Exchange provides a unique data source on the equity trades of 451 large traders located in 23 different cities and 8 European countries. We explore informational asymmetries across the trader population: Traders located outside Germany...