monetary policy conservatism can be uncovered by studying to what extent central banks react to real disturbances. By … logit approach in a panel setting we derive a time-varying indicator of effective monetary policy conservatism for Canada …, Sweden, the UK and the US. Employing this indicator we show that increasing effective conservatism tends to lower inflation …

and strategic conservatism of rating agencies may be reasonable explanations. Analyses of default incidences of non …-U.S. borrowers between January 1996 and December 2006 show that rating conservatism may play a role for industrial firms, but self … unsolicited bank ratings, however, we find strong evidence that rating conservatism is an important cause. The downward bias also …