Credit rating agencies have been an important determinant of countries' cost of capital in the last couple of decades. This paper studies the effect of the governance of modern central banks on the ratings assigned by the credit rating agencies Standard and Poor's and Moody's. Until recently,...

Research on central bank independence (CBI) focuses overwhelmingly on domestic causes and consequences. We consider CBI in relation to global finance. A first step links government decisions to reform central bank legislation to a perceived need to attract capital in the form of foreign direct...

This paper studies the effect of the governance of modern central banks on the ratings assigned by the credit rating agencies Standard and Poor's and Moody's. Until recently, the rating process was not public. Even still, the factors or precise methodologies used by the agencies remain uncertain...