Default by sovereign governments depends upon their willingness to default and the nation's capacity to pay. These are major factors considered by rating analysts and both may be affected by national culture. We hypothesise that ratings are related to culture and empirically examine the relation...

This study examines the effects of national culture and institutional characteristics on the rating migration dynamics of countries rated by Standard & Poor's (S&P) during the period January 1985-October 2011. The study finds that national culture and institutional characteristics have...

This study applies a competing risks approach and an event time dynamic estimation framework to identify the characteristics underlying different insolvency resolutions incurred to U.S. property-casualty insurers during 1998–2010. The estimated hazard model relates the time-varying probability...

The informal constraints that arise from the national culture in which a firm resides have a pervasive impact on managerial decision making and corporate credit risk, which in turn impacts on corporate ratings and rating changes. In some cultures, firms are naturally predisposed to rating...

This study examines the performance and asset allocation policy of 70 KiwiSaver funds labelled as Growth, Balanced or Conservative over the period October 2007- June 2016. On average, funds underperform their respective benchmarks, with the mean quarterly excess return (after management fees) of...

This chapter examines the performance of 96 initial public offerings (IPOs) listed on New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZSX) during the 25-year period from July 1991 to June 2015. The NZX Gross All Index and two portfolios of matched peers based on sector/industry and either sales forecast or...

Purpose: The strong performance of New Zealand's equity market and the Government's efforts to encourage small investors to invest in initial public offering (IPO) firms raises two questions: should retail investors invest in IPO offers and what types of IPOs are worth buying in the long term?...

We use the Cox proportional hazard model to investigate the probability of rating transitions using data for the period 1986 to 2005. Variables that capture rating history and the current rating significantly affect the probability of a rating transition. Different models are required for...