One of the major frontiers in modern finance is the quantification of credit risk and the major resolution of the lessor companies is to identify lessees such that there arises no events of default. The insight to view the equity of a company as a call option provides a coherent framework for...

We consider 1927 borrowers from 54 countries who had a credit rating by both Moody s and S&P as of the end of 1998, and their subsequent default history up to the end of 2002. Viewing bond ratings as predicted probabilities of default, we show that it is unlikely that both agencies are well...

A common feature of financial time series is their strong persistence. Yet, long memory may just be the spurious effect of either structural breaks or slow switching regimes. So far, five testing procedures have been proposed to distinguish between true and spurious long memory. The tests are...