We consider 1927 borrowers from 54 countries who had a credit rating by both Moody's and S&P at the end of 1998, and their subsequent default history up to the end of 2002. Viewing bond ratings as predicted probabilities of default, we consider partial orderings among competing probability...

We plot aggregated daily stock returns with absolute value less than x against x and show empirically that this produces a typical spoon-shaped pattern which indicates a special type of asymmetry which has not been discussed before. This pattern disappears when individual returns are averaged; it...

We investigate the effect of the 20 largest in terms of insured losses man-made or natural disasters on the insurance industry. We show via an event study that insurance markets worldwide are quite resilient to unexpected losses to capital and are even outperforming the general market subsequent...