This paper examines why unsolicited ratings tend to be lower than solicited ratings. Bothself-selection among issuers and strategic conservatism of rating agencies may be reasonableexplanations. Analyses of default incidences of non-U.S. borrowers between January 1996and December 2006 show that...

This paper investigates whether the stock market reacts to unsolicited ratings for a sample of S&P rated firms from January 1996 to December 2005. We first analyze the stock market reaction associated with the assignment of an initial unsolicited rating. We find evidence that this reaction is...

SEC regulations in 1975 gave select rating agencies increased market power by increasing both barriers to entry and the reliance on ratings for regulations. We test whether these regulations led to ratings inflation. We find that defaults and negative financial changes are more likely for firms...

We consider 1927 borrowers from 54 countries who had a credit rating by both Moody's and S&P at the end of 1998, and their subsequent default history up to the end of 2002. Viewing bond ratings as predicted probabilities of default, we consider partial orderings among competing probability...

This paper compares the accuracy of credit ratings of Moody's and Standard&Poor's. Based on 11,428 issuer ratings and 350 defaults in several datasets from 1999 to 2003 a slight advantage for the rating system of Moody's is detected. Compared to former research the robustness of the results is...