There has been much discussion of the Newly Industrializing Countries (NICs) in recent years and various studies of their impact have been made. Much of the concern about NICs in the industrialized countries is however based on what they portend for the future rather than their present impact....

This article presents event studies that find a significant effect on dollar bond yield spreads when rating agencies put emerging-market sovereign bonds on review with negative outlook. The finding has two conditional implications. If rating agencies can be turned from late into early warning...