This paper investigates whether and how the initiation of Credit Default Swaps (CDS) trading affects analyst optimism. First, we document that analyst forecasts become less optimistic after the initiation of CDS trading. Second, we find that the dampening effect of CDS on analyst optimism is...

This study examines whether the quality of borrowers' accounting information affects the accuracy and timeliness of credit ratings issued by rating agencies. I consider two possible effects. The news effect posits that higher quality accounting provides better information to credit rating...

This study finds that better reporting quality is associated with less uncertainty about credit risk as captured by disagreement among the credit rating agencies. The results also show that reporting quality is more important in reducing uncertainty when debt market participants have less access...

We examine credit market responses to the linguistic tone of disclosures made in 10-Q/K fillings, controlling for the information content conveyed in the reports. Examining windows around quarterly filings, we find that uncertain tone levels are associated with changes in credit default swap...

Using a large sample of business groups from more than one hundred countries around the world, we show that group information matters for parent and subsidiary default prediction. Group firms may support each other when in financial distress. Potential group support represents an off-balance...

This study examines the accounting information uncertainty effects on corporate credit risk from the perspective of real earnings management (RM) activities by investigating 9,565 American bond observations from year 2001 to 2008. The main results show that the volatilities of RM activities...

We develop a model for pricing securities whose value may depend simultaneously on equity, interest rate, and default risks. The framework may also be used to extract probabilities of default (PD) functions from market data. Our approach is entirely based on observables such as equity prices and...

This study examines the sources of credit risk associated with asset securitizations and whether credit rating agencies and the bond market differ in their assessment of this risk. Measuring credit risk using credit ratings, we find the securitizing firm's credit risk is positively related to...

Models of financial distress rely primarily on accounting-based information (e.g. [Altman, E., 1968. Financial ratios, discriminant analysis and the prediction of corporate bankruptcy. Journal of Finance 23, 589–609; Ohlson, J., 1980. Financial ratios and the probabilistic prediction of...

We investigate whether credit rating agencies (CRAs) and investors price the extent to which municipal bond ratings are explainable using public information. We use an ordinal logistic regression to estimate the expected and unexpected portions of bond ratings, and find that both CRA fees and...