We study a model in which an issuer can manipulate information obtained by a credit rating agency (CRA). Better CRA screening reduces the likelihood of a high rating, but increases the value of a rated security. We find that improving the prior quality of assets can have no effect on the quality...

Bank lending standards vary over time. Periods in which firms find it relatively easy to borrow are followed by periods in which banks scrutinize borrowers more and tighten lending. We predict that changes in lending standards affect the accounting conservatism of bank-dependent firms. Using (i)...

The aims of this paper are twofold: first, we attempt to express the threshold of a single “A” rating as issued by major international rating agencies in terms of annualised probabilities of default. We use data from Standard & Poor's and Moody's publicly available rating histories to...

Excessive borrowing of local governments in China sparked concerns that the debt may threaten the financial stability of the economy and ultimately cause economic collapse. It becomes critically important to understand the credit rating of China's LFGV bonds and the association between the...

The majority of industry credit portfolio risk models, as well as recent scientific results, are based on isolated modules for default probabilities and recoveries in the event of default. This paper shows that these common methods lead to various econometric drawbacks when the parameters are...

This paper provides evidence of ratings shopping in the corporate bond market. By estimating systematic differences in agencies' biases about any given firm's bonds, I show that new bonds are more likely to be rated by agencies that are positively biased towards the firm---a pattern that is...

How do changes in a rating agency's reputation affect the ratings market? We study the dynamics of credit ratings after Standard & Poor's (S&P) was shut out of a large segment of the commercialmortgage-backed securities (CMBS) ratings market following a procedural mistake. Exploiting the fact...

Credit risk is an important issue in many finance areas, such as the determination of cost of capital, the valuation of corporate bonds and pricing of credit derivatives. Credit risk has also been a cause and consequence of the current financial crisis. Thus, methods for measuring credit risk,...

The aims of this paper are twofold: first, we attempt to express the threshold of a single "A" rating as issued by major international rating agencies in terms of annualised probabilities of default. We use data from Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s publicly available rating histories to...

The aims of this paper are twofold: first, we attempt to express the threshold of a single “A” rating as issued by major international rating agencies in terms of annualised probabilities of default. We use data from Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s publicly available rating histories to...