We analyse whether different levels of country ties to Europe among the rating agencies Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch affect the assignment of sovereign credit ratings, using the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis of 2009-2012 as a natural laboratory. We find that Fitch, the rating agency among the "Big...

In this paper we propose a composite indicator that measures multidimensional sovereign bond market stress in the euro area as a whole and in individual euro area member states. It integrates measures of credit risk, volatility and liquidity at short-term and long-term bond maturities into a...