We examine the information content of Australian credit rating announcements by measuring the abnormal changes in credit default swap (CDS) spreads. CDS spreads provide a direct view of credit quality and thus should impound information quickly when investors receive new credit risk-related...

Thanks to an analysis of structural changes in abnormal spread series, we stress specific investors' reactions to rating actions. These reactions are much more usual when the issues are in sterlings than in euros. When reacting in the euro area, investors mainly react after banks' and public...

In this paper we assess the relevance of information that credit ratings by Moody's, S&P's and Fitch convey to investors in light of financial scandals and reforms affecting the rating business. On a sample of downgrades issued on US corporate bonds by the three agencies from 1998 to 2011, we...

This paper examines how the information quality of ratings from an issuer-paid rating agency (Standard and Poor's) responds to the entry of an investor-paid rating agency, the Egan-Jones Rating Company (EJR). By comparing S&P's ratings quality before and after EJR initiates coverage of each...

The uniqueness of financial market is its ability to differentiate credit risks. Different from banking which credit channeling has only two decisions: yes or no, capital market gives both sides: issuers and investors can bargain the decision based on credit risk differential. Credit risk...

We exploit an investor-paid rating agency's designation as a Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization (NRSRO) to test whether this certification affects the agency's information production. We use a certified issuer-paid agency as a benchmark and find robust evidence that the...

Unsolicited credit ratings are issued solely at the discretion of rating agencies based on public information. This paper analyzes firms' incentives to solicit credit ratings to signal their quality and rating agencies' incentives to issue unsolicited ratings. Conditions for two types of...

With the New Basle Capital Accord banks' capital requirements are determined with risk weights based on internal and external ratings and probabilities of default (PD's). PD's are mostly estimated from historical default rates. In recent working papers the Basle Committee on Banking Supervision...

This paper uses novel regulatory data on internal loan-level risk metrics of US banks to show that corporate loan interest rates line up closely with measures of hard information. We show that the variation in interest rates in excess of what internal models suggest provides limited information...