We examine the spillover effects of the Global Analyst Research Settlement (or Global Settlement) on analysts' earnings forecasts in 40 developed and emerging markets. Prior to the Global Settlement, analysts generally made overly optimistic forecasts, this bias tending to be higher in countries...

This paper shows that analyst recommendations aggregated at the country level predict international stock market returns. A trading strategy based on past country-level recommendations yields an abnormal return of around 0.9 percent per month. Aggregate analyst recommendations also predict...

In this paper, we examine the impact of NASD Rule 2711, NYSE Rule 472, and the Global Research Settlement on the recommendation performance of independent, affiliated, and unaffiliated analysts. We find that analysts from all three types of institutions issued fewer strong buys following these...

This paper examines why unsolicited ratings tend to be lower than solicited ratings. Both self-selection among issuers and strategic conservatism of rating agencies may be reasonable explanations. Analyses of default incidences of non-U.S. borrowers between January 1996 and December 2006 show...

Many have claimed that credit default swaps (CDSs) have lowered the cost of debt financing to firms by creating new hedging opportunities and information for investors. This paper evaluates the impact that the onset of CDS trading has on the spreads that underlying firms pay to raise funding in...

Using novel data and a difference-in-differences strategy, I find that central bank corporate bond purchases lead firms to issue more bonds. The increased bond capital does not lead to significant increases in real investment; rather, they lead to more equity payouts. The diff-in-diff exploits...

This paper argues that first passage time models are likely to better than affine hazard rate models in modelling stressed credit markets and confirms their superior performance in explaining the behavior of Credit Default Swap rates for the major US banking groups over the period of the...

In July 2002, FINRA began mandatory dissemination of price and volume information for corporate bond trades. This paper, using recently released data, measures transparency's effect on trading activity and costs for the entire corporate bond market. Even though trading costs decrease...