The ongoing financial crisis has drawn considerable attention to the role of credit rating agencies in the financial system. We examine how the foreign exchange market reacts to sovereign credit events prior to (2000–2006) and during the crisis (2006–2010). The sample includes a broad set of...

This paper analyses the effects of sovereign rating actions on the credit ratings of banks in emerging markets, using a sample from three global rating agencies across 54 countries for 1999–2009. Despite widespread attention to sovereign ratings and bank ratings, no previous study has...

We analyse sovereign watch and outlook signals from Moody's, S&P and Fitch. Prior literature shows strong market reactions to these signals, which arguably contain more new information than rating changes. We show that the agencies' actions imply different policies: S&P has more emphasis on...

This unique study employs a rich dataset of ratings from six international agencies to investigate the causes of sovereign split ratings in emerging countries. Three reasons are identified in explaining the relatively high frequency of disagreement across agencies on emerging sovereign ratings....