We empirically analyze why rating agencies disagree on countries' default risk. Specically, we explore the sovereign ratings of four agencies and their interaction. Our results indicate that the frequency of split ratings and their lopsidedness is not related to their home region. We...

In this paper, we explore the institutional investors' assessment of relative creditworthiness across selected country groups with a special focus on the impact of public debt on the perception of sovereign risk. Our results show that general government debt is among the most important...