Although credit rating agencies have gradually moved away from a policy of never rating a private borrower above the sovereign (the ""sovereign ceiling"") it appears that sovereign ratings remain a significant determinant of the credit rating assigned to corporations. We examine this link using...

This paper evaluates empirically four types of cost that may result from an international sovereign default: reputational costs, international trade exclusion costs, costs to the domestic economy through the financial system, and political costs to the authorities. It finds that the economic...

This paper compares the impact of shocks to U.S. interest rates and emerging market bond spreads on domestic interest rates and exchange rates across several emerging market economies with different exchange rate regimes. Consistent with conventional priors, the results indicate that interest...

This paper explores the behavior of emerging market mutual funds using a novel database covering the holdings of individual funds over the period January 1996 to March 1999. An examination of individual crises shows that, on average, funds withdrew money one month prior to the events. The degree...