We investigate bank opaqueness by looking at the frequency of large, negative, market-adjusted returns (crashes). We analyze crashes on a sample of US stocks traded in the 1990-2007 period. Jin and Myers (2006) predict that opaqueness coupled with weak investors' protection generate more...

We evaluate the impact of government ownership on the issuer and individual ratings of a sample of 224 large European banks over the 1999-2004 period. Individual ratings differ from traditional ones in that they focus on banks' economic and financial conditions and do not take into account any...