The authors conducted a global study of the long-term issuer ratings of nonfinancial firms from Standard and Poor's Ratings Services (S&P) for the period 1998–2003. Specifically, they focused on the solicited versus unsolicited ratings and sample-selection bias in the analysis. Unlike the...

The venture capital industry in China has been developing rapidly since the early 1990s and venture capital has been playing a more and more important role in the development of small and medium-sized businesses, particularly those in the high-tech industry. The authorities recently adopted more...