Institutional factors that enhance the quality of financial reporting and sharing of credit information can alleviate informational gaps between contracting parties and improve loan contract terms. Using cross-country data on syndicated loans, we find that the cost of debt financing is lower for...

We study the factors behind split ratings in sovereign credit ratings from different agencies, for the period 1980-2015. We employ random effects ordered and simple probit approaches to assess the explanatory power of different macroeconomic, government and financial variables. Our results show...

The government support of financial firms through direct assistance and programs to improve market liquidity during the worldwide financial crisis of 2007-2008 is unprecedented since the Great Depression. Whether a given firm is ex-ante ‘Too Big To Fail' in the mind of government agents is not...

Relationship lending helps reduce asymmetric information, which potentially creates benefits for borrowers. However, empirical evidence is mixed. We conduct a meta-analysis to summarize and explain the heterogeneity in the results in the literature using hand-collected information from 101...

The deferred recognition of COVID-induced losses at banks in many countries hasreignited the debate on regulatory forbearance. This paper presents a model where thepublic's own political pressure drives regulatory policy astray, because the public is poorlyinformed. Using probabilistic game...

In contrast to the early-warning system literature, we find that currency and debt crises are not closely linked in emerging markets. We find that after 1994, credit ratings predict debt crises but fail to anticipate currency crises. When debt crises are defined as sovereign distress-when...

This paper investigates the reaction of credit default swaps spreads to changes in rating class, outlook, and watchlist entries for sovereigns. We find a stronger response to negative outlook and watchlist changes than for actual rating class downgrades, which shows that negative outlook and...

The effects of the main macroeconomic determinants on the sovereign credit rating of Turkey assigned by Standard & Poor's are analyzed in this paper. As the main macroeconomic determinants, inflation rate, economic growth rate, foreign direct investment, external debt, current account debt and...

Two factors have proven to be strongly relevant for the subprime mortgage crisis. The first is the lack of screening incentives of originators, which had not been anticipated by investors. The second is that investors relied too much on credit ratings. We examine whether investors have learned...