It is well known that credit ratings agencies (CRAs) are a key component of financial markets. But it is less well understood that its decisions reach far beyond the financial system boundaries, and have a direct impact in our daily lives. But, how is that so? If CRAs are important in the...

The paper models and analyses the dynamics of credit spread curves based on ratings over the period from 2004 to 2021. Using more than 1.5 million data points of individual bonds, instead of using index data, monthly asset swap spread (ASW) curves are constructed for all rating levels. The paper...

There is empirical evidence and objective argument, which justifies the core functioning of money in economic growth and its correlation to the development of a Nation, which equally establishes the reason for the relevant role of Banks in every economy. The underpinning of this research is to...

Do credit ratings affect the information content of corporate disclosure? Using novel data on rating analysts to obtain exogenous variation in rating information, we find that greater uncertainty in credit ratings increases the quality of information disclosed by the firm. This is consistent...

This study investigates whether and when differences in the credit rating agencies' methodologies result in differences in rating properties. In particular, this study focuses on differences in information processing constraints between a rating agency that utilizes qualitative analysis and...

In this paper, we study the optimal credit rating system in an economy where agents need to borrow and have incentives to renege on debt repayments. We show that credit exclusion creates soft collateral in the form of a borrower's reputation. Compared with individual lending, bank lending...

This research aims to model the relationship between the credit risk signals in the credit default swap (CDS) market and agency credit ratings, and determines the factors that help explain the variation in such signals. A comprehensive analysis of the differences in the relative credit risk...

Do rating announcements reduce information asymmetries? We investigate the effect of rating disclosures on the volatility and liquidity of the US bond market. Although rating agencies' decisions often are anticipated by credit spread changes, we show that in the case of no regulatory change...