This paper asks whether rating agencies played a passive role or were an active driving force during Europe's sovereign debt crisis. We address this by estimating relationships between sovereign debt ratings and macroeconomic and structural variables. We then use these equ-ations to decompose...

Diese kumulative Dissertation befasst sich mit den Ursachen und makroökonomischen Auswirkungen von Kreditbeschränkungen auf drei verschiedene ökonomische Akteure: Staaten, Firmen und Individuen. Die erste Arbeit untersucht Kreditbeschränkungen auf Staatenebene. In einer empirischen Analyse...

This article narrates Ireland’s recent odyssey from the pride and envy of Europe to kneeling supplicant through the eyes of an econometric model of the government bond market. The exercise suggests that, in essence, two developments triggered and propelled Ireland’s drift towards sovereign...

This paper asks whether rating agencies played a passive role or were an active driving force during Europe's sovereign debt crisis. We address this by estimating relationships between sovereign debt ratings and macroeconomic and structural variables. We then use these equ-ations to decompose...