Investors are being encouraged after the global crisis to reduce their dependence on the largest credit rating agencies for risk assessments of companies and securities. Comparing risk assessments from different sources rapidly becomes non-trivial when more than three credit rating agencies are...

Under the Basel II accord, improving probability of default models is a key risk-management priority. There are four main aspects of this research: suggesting the bank default classification; using a wide time horizon (quarterly Russian banking statistics from 1998 to 2011); investigating the...

The 'informal' sector of an economy is generally seen as a private sphere, where agents seek to escape the reach of the state and, in particular, the tax organs. However, given the weakness of the Russian state and the enormous scale of informal economic activity, the fiscal authorities try to...

We compare several models for estimating the default probabilities of Russian banks using national statistics from 1998 to 2011, and find that a binary logit regression with a quasi-panel data structure works best. The results indicate that there is a quadratic U-shaped relationship between a...

We compare several models for estimating the default probabilities of Russian banks using national statistics from 1998 to 2011, and find that a binary logit regression with a quasi-panel data structure works best. The results indicate that there is a quadratic U-shaped relationship between a...

The paper presents an econometric study of the two bank ratings assigned by Moody's Investors Service. According to Moody’s methodology, foreigncurrency long-term deposit ratings are assigned on the basis of Bank Financial Strength Ratings (BFSR), taking into account “external bank support...

In the paper an econometric method of rating scales mapping is suggested. The method is based on the setting up ordered choice models for the ratings and mapping the correspondent latent variables («continuous ratings») with a monotone function. The method takes into account bank’s financial...

The paper presents an econometric study of the two bank ratings assigned by Moody's Investors Service. According to Moody’s methodology, foreign-currency long-term deposit ratings are assigned on the basis of Bank Financial Strength Ratings (BFSR), taking into account “external bank support...

We study barriers to labour mobility using panel data on gross region-to-region migration flows in Russia in 1996-2010. Using both parametric and semiparametric methods and controlling for region-to-region pairwise fixed effects, we find a non-monotonic relationship between income and migration....

Contemporary police scholars have argued that it is important to study “how representations of the police and policing are produced and received” (Loader, 1997: 5) and what social meanings are created by them. Police scholars have claimed that police television series produce media images...