We analyse whether different levels of country ties to Europe among the rating agencies Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch affect the assignment of sovereign credit ratings, using the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis of 2009-2012 as a natural laboratory. We find that Fitch, the rating agency among the "Big...

In this study, we analyze the effects of sovereign credit rating reviews on national stock market performances in GIIPS and BRIC countries during the European Sovereign Debt Crisis of 2009-2013. Through an event study, we test the Null Hypothesis that cumulative abnormal returns on national...

Credit rating agencies are frequently criticized for producing sovereign ratings that do not accurately reflect the economic and political fundamentals of rated countries. This article discusses how the home country of rating agencies could affect rating decisions as a result of political...

We analyze the impact of sovereign rating changes on European corporate loan spreads. We demonstrate that sovereign downgrades lead to significant increases in the spread of loans to domestic firms. We find evidence that the negative effects of a sovereign downgrade are widespread across all...

Credit rating agencies are frequently criticized for producing sovereign ratings that do not accurately reflect the economic and political fundamentals of rated countries. This article discusses how the home country of rating agencies could affect rating decisions as a result of political...

Credit rating agencies are frequently criticized for producing sovereign ratings that do not accurately reflect the economic and political fundamentals of rated countries. This article discusses how the home country of rating agencies could affect rating decisions as a result of political...

Credit rating agencies are frequently criticized for producing sovereign ratings that do not accurately reflect the economic and political fundamentals of rated countries. This article discusses how the home country of rating agencies could affect rating decisions as a result of political...

Credit rating agencies are frequently criticized for producing biased sovereign ratings. This article discusses how the home country of rating agencies could affect rating decisions as a result of political economy influences and cultural distance. Using data from nine agencies based in six...

This paper examines whether the Big Three credit rating agencies actually played as active a role in the Euro Crisis as previously asserted. On the basis of panel data methods for a set of 11 EMU countries, the analysis reveals significant evidence for an arbitrary markup on the GIPS group of...

We study the causal effect of bank credit rating downgrades on the supply of bank lending. The identification strategy exploits the asymmetric impact of sovereign downgrades on the ratings of banks at the sovereign bound relative to bank that are not at the bound as a result of rating agencies'...