Do managers withhold bad news from credit rating agencies?

Research documents that managers, on average, withhold bad news and emphasize good news in their public disclosures. We ask whether the same is true in their private communications with credit rating agencies. We study how rating agencies anticipate and react to public information events as a function of their access to rated firms’ private information. We show that, in terms of ratings downgrades, rating agencies exhibit relatively more anticipation and less reaction to negative (compared to positive) public information events when they have more access to private information. Our results are strongest when firms are most optimistic in their public disclosures and are not due to rating agencies focusing their efforts on downside risk. Overall, we find consistent evidence that rated firms provide less optimistic information to rating agencies in their private communications and that this information is reflected in credit ratings.

     

债券评级机构变更——基于评级选购与评级迎合视角

本文以2008年至2017年的公司债券为样本,研究了发行人变更评级机构的影响,以此来解释评级市场上发行人频繁变更评级机构的现象。本文发现发行人变更评级机构后,其信用等级得到显著提升。发行人变更评级机构的行为对信用等级的影响在以下两种情形中更显著:一是当发行人所处行业或评级机构所在的评级市场竞争激烈时;二是当发行人主体评级位于AA信用等级的临界点时。进一步研究发现,考虑到评级机构变更与信用等级之间的交互影响,变更评级机构的发行人整体上可实现发债成本的降低。但该类发行人未来的违约风险增加、经营业绩下降。最后,本文发现债券发行规模较大以及非国有发行人更倾向于变更评级机构来提高信用等级。本文通过分析发行人更换信用评级机构的动机和后果,为监管部门构建以评级质量为导向的良性竞争环境提供借鉴参考。     

Seniority Differentials in High Yield Bonds: Evolution,Valuation, and Ratings

Almost 20 years ago, one of the coauthors of this article published a study that reported finding systematically wider yield spreads on senior corporate bonds than on subordinated bonds with the same credit rating, but issued by different companies. The study also showed that this difference in spreads did not represent a market “anomaly” or failure to price risk correctly, but instead reflected differences in the actual, and hence the expected, loss rates of the securities. And such differences were in turn shown to stem from the practice of the rating agencies—which was abandoned about ten years ago—of rating a given issuer's subordinated debt two “notches” below that of its senior debt. Partly in response to this finding, all of the major agencies modified their use of this “two‐notch” convention by initiating in‐depth fundamental analysis of subordinated issuers on a case‐by‐case basis. In the meantime, the near disappearance of subordinated debt in the high yield market since the global financial crisis and its partial replacement by secured debt has furnished the authors of this article with a seemingly related “anomaly” to explore—namely, the tendency of secured bonds to have higher yields than samerated senior unsecured bonds. As in the earlier study of the senior‐subordinated puzzle, the authors' analysis confirms that the market has been properly pricing the relative risks of the different securities by showing that the actual loss rates of the secured issues have been systematically higher than those of like‐rated senior unsecured issues. The clear suggestion of these findings, as in the case of the earlier study, is that those investors who have chosen to incur the costs of analyzing expected loss rates instead of relying solely on the ratings have been rewarded for their efforts. And if the past is a guide to the future, this article may also succeed in spurring the rating agencies to make further refinements to their methods.     

The Effect of Business and Financial Market Cycles on Credit Ratings: Evidence from the Last Two Decades

We analyze the effect of business and financial market cycles on credit ratings using a sample of firms from the Russell 3000 index that are rated by Standard and Poor's over the period 1986–2012. We also examine investor reaction to credit rating actions in different stages of business and financial market cycles. We document that credit rating agencies are influenced by business and financial market cycles; they assign lower credit ratings during downturns of business and financial market cycles and higher ratings during upturns. Our study is the first to find strong evidence of pro‐cyclicality in credit ratings using a long window. We also document stronger investor reaction to negative credit rating actions during downturns. Our results confirm theoretical predictions and inform regulators.     

INFORMATION OPACITY AND FITCH BOND RATINGS

We examine the marginal impact of Fitch ratings on the at‐issuance yields of industrial and utility bonds rated by Moody's and Standard & Poor's. We find that Fitch ratings reduce the yield premiums on information‐opaque bonds by about 30%, or 15 basis points. The finding is robust even when a Fitch rating exactly equals the two major ratings or their average. The findings suggest that Fitch ratings are not redundant but bring additional information to investors. Increased competition in the rating industry enhances the information efficiency of the bond market, and the existence of smaller rating agencies is economically justified.     

Explaining credit rating differences between Japanese and U.S. agencies

We compare credit ratings assigned to Japanese firms by the two leading U.S. rating agencies and the two leading Japanese agencies. Our goal is to investigate the complaint that the U.S. agencies Moody's and Standard and Poor's (S&P) ignore special corporate governance features of Japanese firms, i.e., keiretsu affiliation. We find that it is true that ratings of Japanese firms by the U.S. agencies are systematically lower than those assigned by Japanese raters. However, the reasons for the differences are not found to be related to keiretsu affiliation. Thus, we reject one of the prominent reasons for rating differences put forth by managers of Japanese firms. This leaves open the question of what drives the difference. The phenomenon is clearly consistent with more general home bias documented in previous work.     

Reactions of Japanese markets to changes in credit ratings by global and local agencies

We examine data from the mid-1980s to 2003 to investigate whether stock prices set on the Tokyo Stock Exchange for Japanese firms react more strongly to changes in credit ratings of global rating agencies than of local agencies. This offers a strong test of relative influence of the two groups of rating agencies. We hypothesize that global raters will have more influence, but given that the two global agencies, Moody’s and Standard and Poors, are headquartered in the United States, analysis of stocks of Japanese firms listed on US exchanges would confound the results to the extent there is a home bias for raters. We find that global agencies are more influential than the two major local raters, Japan Rating and Investment Information and Japan Credit Rating Agency, for rating downgrades. Thus for credit downgrades, global raters are more influential than local ones even in the local market. Consistent with previous research, we find that upgrades are benign events, and this holds true for global as well as local agencies.     

Recognition versus disclosure of finance leases: Evidence from Japan

This study examines whether credit market participants—bond investors and credit rating agencies—treat recognized and disclosed finance leases differently when assessing firms’ credit risk in Japan. I use firms’ credit risk, measured by bond spreads and credit ratings, to investigate the relations between recognized versus disclosed finance lease obligations and firms’ credit risk following the adoption of Statement No. 13, Accounting Standard for Lease Transactions. For a sample of firms issuing new bonds, I find that, unlike recognized finance leases, disclosed finance leases are not associated with bond spreads. Moreover, the associations between recognized versus disclosed finance leases and bond spreads are substantially different. Conversely, recognized and disclosed finance leases are associated with credit ratings and are processed similarly when credit ratings are determined. Taken together, my results suggest that the sophistication of capital market participants influences their credit risk assessments of recognized versus disclosed finance leases.     

Ratings Quality and Borrowing Choice

Past studies document that incentive conflicts may lead issuer‐paid credit rating agencies to provide optimistically biased ratings. In this paper, we present evidence that investors question the quality of issuer‐paid ratings and raise corporate bond yields where the issuer‐paid rating is more positive than benchmark investor‐paid ratings. We also find that some firms with favorable issuer‐paid ratings substitute public bonds with borrowings from informed intermediaries to mitigate the “lemons discount” associated with poor quality ratings. Overall, our results suggest that the quality of issuer‐paid ratings has significant effects on borrowing costs and the choice of debt.     

A Crisis of Banks as Liquidity Providers

Can banks maintain their advantage as liquidity providers when exposed to a financial crisis? While banks honored credit lines drawn by firms during the 2007 to 2009 crisis, this liquidity provision was only possible because of explicit, large support from the government and government‐sponsored agencies. At the onset of the crisis, aggregate deposit inflows into banks weakened and their loan‐to‐deposit shortfalls widened. These patterns were pronounced at banks with greater undrawn commitments. Such banks sought to attract deposits by offering higher rates, but the resulting private funding was insufficient to cover shortfalls and they reduced new credit.     

Split Bond Ratings and Information Opacity Premiums

This paper examines the relationship between split bond ratings and bond yields at the notch level for newly issued corporate bonds. We find that split rated bonds average a 7-basis-point yield premium over nonsplit rated bonds of similar credit risk. The yield premium increases from 5 basis points for one-notch splits to 15 (20) basis points for two-notch (three-notch) splits. These findings indicate that investors demand higher yields for split rated bonds to compensate for the information opacity of such bonds. In addition, the yield premium for split rated bonds is higher during economic recessions, indicating investors are more risk averse during economic downturns. Consequently, split ratings impose higher borrowing costs for firms, especially during economic downturns.     

Financial Distress in the Great Depression

We use firm‐level data to study corporate performance during the Great Depression era for all industrial firms on the NYSE. Our goal is to identify the factors that contribute to business insolvency and valuation changes during the period 1928‐1938. We find that firms with more debt and lower bond ratings in 1928 became financially distressed more frequently during the Depression, consistent with the trade‐off theory of leverage and the information production role of credit rating agencies. We also document for the first time that firms responded to tax incentives to use debt during the Depression era but that the extra debt used in response to this tax‐driven “debt bias” did not contribute significantly to the occurrence of distress. Finally, we conduct an out‐of‐sample test during the recent 2008‐2009 Recession and find that higher leverage and lower bond ratings also increased the occurrence of financial distress during this period.     

A Theoretical and Empirical Review of the EU Regulation on Credit Rating Agencies: In Search of Truth,Not Scapegoats

The undergoing financial turbulence has raised significant concerns over the role that credit rating agencies (CRAs) played in the inception, magnification and expansion of the crisis. In response, the EU legislature has adopted Regulation 1060/2009, which, for the first time, set out a legally binding pan‐European authorization regime for CRAs, which issue ratings that have been used by EU‐based financial institutions. As the turmoil turned into an unprecedented Eurozone debt crisis, EU politicians have been calling for tighter regulation of the credit rating industry. Drawing on the relevant empirical and theoretical research and building upon a comparative study of the corresponding US framework, the paper discusses critically the principles underlying EU Regulation 1060/2009 and the most recent suggestions for its reform. The paper argues that although, overall, the EU Regulation seems to be a well‐balanced instrument in the sense that it introduces the essential checks upon CRAs’ behavior while avoiding excessive regulatory intervention, more fine‐tuning is needed in certain fields, including, rating shopping, financial ties with rated entities, abuse of inside information, transparency and CRAs’ accountability.     

Looking Beyond Credit Ratings: Factors Investors Consider In Pricing European Asset‐Backed Securities

In this paper, we empirically investigate what credit factors investors rely upon when pricing the spread at issue for European asset‐backed securities. More specifically, we investigate how credit factors affect new issuance spreads after taking into account credit rating. We do so by investigating primary market spreads for tranches of non‐mortgage‐related asset‐backed securities issued from 1999 to the year prior to the subprime mortgage crisis, 2007. We find that although credit ratings play a major role in determining spreads, investors appear to not rely exclusively on these ratings. Our findings strongly suggest that investors do not ignore other credit factors beyond the assigned credit rating.     

Rating agencies and the role of rating publication rights

While credit rating agencies disclose all public ratings as a matter of policy, a firm can choose whether to make a so called private rating public or to keep it confidential. This paper analyzes the economic role of such rating publication rights. In particular, the paper tries to answer the following two questions: (1) If firms have scope to disclose agency ratings at their own discretion, can they use this discretion strategically and conceal low-quality ratings?, and (2), if this is the case, what are the economic implications for rated firms, unrated firms and the rating agency, resulting from strategically motivated selective rating disclosures? Using a theoretical model, it is shown that an equilibrium with partial nondisclosure of low-quality ratings can emerge whenever investors cannot be sure whether rating nondisclosure is due to the firm being not rated, or due to the rating’s adverse content. Moreover, since from an investors’ perspective, strategically acting rated firms and unrated firms are pooled, unrated firms’ debt is always under-valued (compared to a situation in which investors know that the firm is not rated), and the debt of firms concealing their rating is always over-valued.     

Is There a Difference Between Solicited and Unsolicited Bank Ratings and, If So, Why?

This paper analyses the effect of soliciting a rating on the actual outcome of bank ratings. Using two sample banks (one rated by Fitch and one rated by S&P), I find evidence that unsolicited ratings tend to be lower than solicited ones, after accounting for differences in observable bank characteristics. This downward bias does not seem to be explained by the fact that better-quality banks self-select into the solicited group. Rather, unsolicited ratings appear to be lower because they are based on public information and are therefore dependent on the quantity of public information disclosed by the banks. As a result, unsolicited ratings tend to be more conservative than solicited ratings, which incorporate both public and non-public information. While the latter result is also consistent with the fact that credit rating agencies may blackmail low-disclosure firms, the findings suggest that blackmailing—if it is actually used—is ineffective in making these firms start to pay for a rating.     

Sovereign credit ratings during the COVID-19 pandemic

Using 603 sovereign rating actions by the three leading global rating agencies between January 2020 and March 2021, this paper shows that the severity of sovereign ratings actions is not directly affected by the intensity of the COVID-19 health crisis (proxied by case and mortality rates) but through a mechanism of its negative economic repercussions such as the economic outlook of a country and governments' response to the health crisis. Contrary to expectations, credit rating agencies pursued mostly a business-as-usual approach and reviewed sovereign ratings when they were due for regulatory purposes rather than in response to the rapid developments of the pandemic. Despite their limited reaction to the ongoing pandemic, sovereign rating news from S&P and Moody's still conveyed price-relevant information to the bond markets.     

国家主权信用评级质量检验方法研究

国家主权信用评级对当今国际经济和金融运行有着极为重要的影响力。但是,与其地位不相符的是,评级机构的评级结果事后多次被证明准确性和前瞻性较差。事先缺乏预警而事后大幅降级,甚至对加剧危机起到了推波助澜的作用。本文从国家主权信用评级质量的检验方法入手,系统分析了违约率和迁移率等传统方法在检验评级结果起到的作用及其不足,给出了检验评级质量的一般方法,并验证了该评级检验方法的科学性和准确性。     

Testing for statistical arbitrage in credit derivatives markets

This paper studies statistical arbitrage opportunities in credit derivatives markets using strategies combining Credit Default Swaps (CDSs) and Asset Swap Packages (ASPs) by means of an improved statistical arbitrage test. Using four different databases (GFI, Reuters, CMA, and J.P. Morgan) from 2005 to 2009, we find persistent mispricings between the CDS and ASP spreads of individual firms, which should be priced similarly, before and during the 2007–2009 financial crisis. These mispricings are more frequent in low credit quality bonds and appear to offer arbitrage opportunities. We also aggregate the firms' CDS and ASP in a portfolio and still find persistent deviations, mainly in the lower rated bonds. In aggregate terms the deviations from the parity relation can be explained from systematic factors such as financing costs, counterparty risk, and global risk. However, after considering realistic estimations of funding and trading costs, all these mispricings are unlikely to provide profitable arbitrage opportunities.     

The impact of sovereign rating actions on bank ratings in emerging markets

This paper analyses the effects of sovereign rating actions on the credit ratings of banks in emerging markets, using a sample from three global rating agencies across 54 countries for 1999–2009. Despite widespread attention to sovereign ratings and bank ratings, no previous study has investigated the link in this manner. We find that sovereign rating upgrades (downgrades) have strong effects on bank rating upgrades (downgrades). The impact of sovereign watch status on bank rating actions is much weaker and often insignificant. The sensitivity of banks’ ratings to sovereign rating actions is affected by the countries’ economic and financial freedom and by macroeconomic conditions. Ratings of banks with different ownership structures are all influenced strongly by the sovereign rating, with some variation depending on the countries’ characteristics. Emerging market bank ratings are less likely to follow sovereign rating downgrades during the recent financial crisis period.