This paper investigates the behaviour of credit rating agencies (CRAs) using a natural experiment in monetary policy. Specifically, we exploit the corporate QE of the Eurosystem and its rating-based specific design which generates exogenous variation in the probability for a bond of becoming...

The investment of foreign exchange reserves or other asset portfolios requires an assessment of the credit quality of counterparties. Traditionally, foreign exchange reserve managers and other investors have relied on credit rating agencies (CRAs) as the main source for credit assessments. The...

The investment of foreign exchange reserves or other asset portfolios requires an assessment of the credit quality of investment counterparties. Traditionally, foreign exchange reserve and asset managers have relied on credit rating agencies (CRAs) as the main source for credit assessments. The...

This paper provides evidence for regulatory arbitrage within the class of assetbacked securities (ABS) based on individual asset holding data of German banks. I find that those banks operating with tight regulatory constraints pick the securities with the highest yield and lowest collateral...

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of most Asian economies. The main obstacle to the development of the SME sector is the lack of stable finance. Considering the bank-dominated characteristic of economies in Asia, banks are the main source of financing, and the lack of a...

Due to the asymmetry of information between borrowers that are small- or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and lenders (banks), many banks are considering this sector as a risky sector. It is crucial for banks to be able to distinguish healthy from risky companies in order to reduce their...

Credit risk measurement and management become more important in all financial institutions in the light of the current financial crisis and the global recession. This particularly applies to most of the complex structured financing forms whose risk cannot be quantified with com-mon rating...

We test if issuers of asset- and mortgage-backed securities receive rating favors from agencies with which they maintain strong business relationships. Controlling for issuer fixed effects and a large set of credit risk determinants, we show that agencies publish better ratings for those issuers...

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...

Loss Given Default (LGD) is a major element for pricing credits and bonds. As there has been a substantial amount of research during the last years, this paper aims to give an overview. Initially, defaults and recovery definitions for credits and the differences to bonds are discussed. A survey...