Rating agencies state that they take a rating action only when it is unlikely to be reversed shortly afterwards. Based on a formal representation of the rating process, I show that such a policy provides a good explanation for the empirical evidence: Rating changes occur relatively seldom,...

"Arbitrage CDOs" have recorded an explosive growth during the years before the outbreak of the financial crisis. In the present paper we discuss potential sources of such arbitrage opportunities, in particular arbitrage gains due to mispricing. For this purpose we examine the risk profiles of...

We consider 1927 borrowers from 54 countries who had a credit rating by both Moody's and S&P as of the end of 1998, and their subsequent default history up to the end of 2002. Viewing bond ratings as predicted probabilities of default, we show that it is unlikely that both agencies are well...

A firm's current leverage ratio is one of the core characteristics of credit quality used in statistical default prediction models. Based on the capital structure literature, which shows that leverage is mean-reverting to a target leverage, we forecast future leverage ratios and include them in...

Reduction of the earth’s biodiversity as a result of human activities is a matter of great concern to prominent scientists. What are the economic aspects of this loss? In economic terms, what is biodiversity and why might it matter? And is the loss of biodiversity in any way connected with...

Although pension funds have gained importance in the last two decades, their role has not been described in detail by economic models. This paper focusses on the scope of these institutional investors when they are not satisfied with a management team of a company in which the pension fund holds...

How can we overcome the existing political, economic, and ecological crises that humanity faces? With the notion of the commons, Lukas Peter argues that this form of social organization can provide answers to the shortcomings of centralized states and open and competitive markets. By building on...

We compare a partners condition where the same small group of subjects plays arepeated public good game to astrangers condition where subjects play this game in changing group formations.Subjects in the partners conditioncontribute from the first period on significantly more to the public good...