Rating collateralised debt obligations (CDOs), which are based on tranched pools of credit risk exposures, does not only require attributing a probability of default to each obligor within the portfolio. It also involves assumptions concerning recovery rates and correlated defaults of pool...

Rating collateralised debt obligations (CDOs), which are based on tranched pools of credit risk exposures, does not only require attributing a probability of default to each obligor within the portfolio. It also involves assumptions concerning recovery rates and correlated defaults of pool...

We find that Credit Rating Agencies (CRA)'s opinions have an impact in the cost of funding of sovereign issuers and consequently ratings are a concern for financial stability. While ratings produced by the major CRAs perform reasonably well when it comes to rank ordering default risk among...

Credit rating agencies face a difficult trade-off between delivering both accurate and stable ratings. In particular, its users have consistently expressed a preference for rating stability, driven by the transactions costs induced by trading when ratings change frequently. Rating agencies...

This paper provides the first empirical assessment of the impact of life expectancy assumptions on the liabilities of private U.S. defined benefit (DB) pension plans. Using detailed actuarial and financial information provided by the U.S. Department of Labor, we construct a longevity variable...

Credit derivative markets are largely unregulated, but calls are increasingly being made for changes to this ""hands off"" stance, amidst concerns that they helped to fuel the current financial crisis, or that they could be a cause of the next one. The purpose of this paper is to address two...

This paper builds on recent research by Fender and Mitchell (2009) who show that if financial institutions securitize loans, retaining an interest in the equity tranche does not always induce the securitizer to diligently screen borrowers ex ante. We first determine the conditions under which...

Klyuev (2008) concluded that the Canadian market for housing finance is highly advanced and sophisticated, but financing options were somewhat limited, particularly at terms longer than five years. This paper argues that the paucity of longer-term loans is caused by a five-year maturity cap on...