Alcohol consumption is considered an important social activity but a major health risk in Latin American and Caribbean countries (LAC). Alcohol consumption net benefits are doubtful and the factors influencing alcohol consumption in the LAC countries are not well documented. In this study, we...

Replaced with revised version of poster 08/30/11.

We model EU countries? bank ratings using financial variables and allowing for intercept and slope heterogeneity. We find that country-specific factors (in the form of heterogeneous intercepts) are a crucial determinant of ratings. Whilst ?new? EU countries typically have lower ratings than...