The present paper reviews the causes that led to the financial crisis. Unlike other interpretations, this paper does not place main significance on a single source or on a set of causes. I consider all major standpoints highlighted by research and media prior, during and after the financial...

We examine the relationship between credit ratings and bond yield spreads of peripheral countries in the euro area (Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain) for the period 1995-2014. Since 2012, bond spreads of those countries have come down very fast, whereas credit ratings have hardly...

Rating agencies strive to assign reliable, objective and comparable credit ratings as an indicator on one consistent scale. We test empirically how rating agencies meet their promise of providing objective and comparable assessments of credit risk of an issuer and thus creditworthiness. Logistic...

This paper assesses the impact of asset backed ratings on the Merrill Lynch US Asset Backed Securities and Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities Index (CABs index) over a period January 1998 through to February 2010. In particular, we examine the relationship between ratings changes of the asset...

We examine the contribution of when-issued trading to price discovery and underpricing in the Indian IPO market. Besides the when-issued trading, there exists IPO grading, analyst recommendation, group affiliation, and the subscription rates in the bookbuilding process. We examine the impact of...

We investigate the impact of credit ratings on the valuation of diversification. Our empirical results indicate that the existence and level of credit ratings are associated with a lower negative effect of diversification. Further analysis reveals that the mitigating effect of credit ratings on...