"Arbitrage CDOs" have recorded an explosive growth during the years before the outbreak of the financial crisis. In the present paper we discuss potential sources of such arbitrage opportunities, in particular arbitrage gains due to mispricing. For this purpose we examine the risk profiles of...

This paper analyzes influences on the credit standing of Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), specifically the quality, diversification and single name concentration of their portfolios, and on the market practice known as Preferred Creditor Status (PCS), whereby sovereigns that default on...

We investigate whether credit rating agencies incorporate climate risk in their rating models. As climate risk is not well defined, we implement several identification strategies using a sample of U.S. cities whose creditworthiness should vary with climate risk–related disruptions to their...

This paper examines the connection between deviations in covered interest rate parity and differences in the credit spread of bonds of similar risk but different currency denomination. These two pricing anomalies are highly aligned in both the time series and the cross-section of currencies. The...

Climate change can be a source of financial risk. This paper examines how credit rating agencies accepted by the Eurosystem incorporate climate change risk in their credit ratings. It also analyses how rating agencies disclose their assessments of climate change risks to rating users. The paper...

The sovereign credit ratings provided by credit rating agencies have great impact on a country's access to credit markets. To gain access to international credit markets, a country usually seeks ratings from the three biggest international credit rating agencies: Standard & Poor's, Moody's, and...

We show that sovereign debt impairments can have a significant impact on financial markets and real economies through a credit ratings channel. Specifically, we find that firms reduce their investment and reliance on credit markets due to a rising cost of debt capital following a sovereign...

Market-implied ratings gained importance as efficient early warnings of official credit rating migrations. We build a two-dimensional implied rating system that gathers information from both the bond and the CDS markets. The system is able to outdo each of the corresponding one-dimensional...