This study examines the empirical relations between the governance structure of public corporations in the United States and the rating and pricing of their debt securities. We study an unbalanced panel of 775 unique U.S. firms from 2001 through 2007 and identify several statistically significant relations between corporate governance factors and credit ratings, bond spreads and firm values. We...

The recent financial crisis has raised questions regarding the role credit rating agencies play in monitoring the quality of corporate debt. Utility industry deregulation serves as a natural testing ground for evaluating the prudence of rating agencies and their monitoring process. Following deregulation and the Enron scandal, the general opinion among industry professionals is that utilities a...

The aim of this study was to examine the impact environmental, social, and governance (ESG) measures on credit ratings given non-financial institutions by largest rating agencies according economic sector divisions. hypotheses were as follows: a strong negative institutions’ changes will result from ESG risk changes, reaction vary in different sectors. Panel event models used verify these hypot...