7 Credit-spreads-based HJM Type Model 21 7.1 Single Credit Rating Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 7.2 Alternative Specifications of Recovery Payment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 7.3 Multiple Credit Ratings Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 7.4 Market Prices of Interest Rate and Credit Risk . . . . . . ...

n recent years, the demand for sovereign credit rat-ings—the risk assessments assigned by the credit rating agencies to the obligations of central govern-ments—has increased dramatically. More governments with greater default risk and more companies domiciled in riskier host countries are borrowing in international bond markets. Although foreign government officials generally cooperate with the...

For decades credit rating agencies were viewed as trusted arbiters of creditworthiness and their ratings as important tools for managing risk. The common narrative is that the value of ratings was compromised by the evolution of the industry to a form where issuers pay for ratings. In this paper we show how credit ratings have value in equilibrium and how reputation insures that, in equilibrium...

The internal-ratings based Basel II approach increases the need for the development of more realistic default probability models. In this paper we follow the approach taken in McNeil and Wendin (2006) by constructing generalized linear mixed models for estimating default probabilities from annual data on companies with different credit ratings. The models considered, in contrast to McNeil and W...

Many blame the recent financial market turmoil on malfeasance of ratings agencies, who had incentives to bias their ratings. But these incentives had existed for decades. Why did the ratings bias issue only recently emerge? We model asset issuers who can cherry-pick ratings – observe multiple ratings and disclose only a subset – before auctioning their assets. When assets are simple, agencies’ ...