国际三大评级机构主权信用评级模式的经验及启示

发展和完善主权信用评级业是维护我国金融主权和经济安全的重要举措. 以标准普尔、穆迪、惠誉三家评级机构为代表的国际评级机构,均通过综合评估政府偿还债务的能力和意愿来展示主权国家的信用状况. 此评级模式采用定量与定性结合的评估方式,评级指标全面、准确、完整,但具有潜意识下的制度偏好,易受主观影响且透明度不高. 借鉴国际经验,我国应大力扶持主权信用评级机构发展,建立自己的评级标准和模式,并加强主权信用评级市场的规范和监管.     

信用评级机构收费模式探讨

在追踪国外评级机构收费模式发展情况的基础上,对我国评级机构的收费模式进行了深入分析,发现当前我国评级机构收费模式具有其存在的显示依据,收费模式之争关键还是在于提高评级机构的公正性。     

主权信用评级的决定因素与信用评级机构的规范化研究

目前,国际信用评级机构遭遇了自其建立以来最严峻的信任危机。本文研究了主权信用评级的决定因素,并从近几次危机中评级失真的原因分析入手,提出了信用评级机构的规范化方法。研究表明:正常年份中,债务国发展的基本面情况是主权信用评级的主要决定因素;评级行业的垄断与评级机构特殊的政治目的固然是近年来评级失真频现的原因,但国际投资者对于评级机构的过度依赖亦是危机中"评级结果决定主权走势"现象出现的原因之一。要辩证地看待评级机构,既不能一概否认,也不能无限夸大,应该在提高投资者自身风险评估能力的基础上,强化评级市场的竞争,并且努力构建内外监管相结合的全方位监管体系。     

信用评级方法与模式

信用评级是对客户偿还债能力和意愿的评估,是对债务偿还风险的综合评价。经过近百年的发展,形成了不同特点、不同风格的信用评级方法。     

主权信用评级的决定因素与信用评级机构的规范化研究

目前,国际信用评级机构遭遇了自其建立以来最严峻的信任危机。本文在简要介绍信用评级机构与主权信用评级的基础上,从定性与定量的角度研究了主权信用评级的决定因素;并从近几次危机中评级失真的原因分析入手,提出了信用评级机构的规范化方法。研究表明:1、正常年份中,债务国发展的基本面情况是主权信用评级的主要决定因素;2、评级行业的垄断与评级机构特殊的政治目的固然是近年来评级失真频现的原因,但国际投资者对于评级机构的过度依赖亦是危机中"评级结果决定主权走势"现象出现的原因之一;3、我们要辩证地看待评级机构,既不能一概否认,也不能无限夸大,应该在提高投资者自身风险评估能力的基础上,强化评级市场的竞争,并且努力构建内外监管相结合全方位监管体系。     

银行机构信用评级的国际经验与借鉴

本文总结了国外监管部门和中介机构开展银行机构信用评级的主要经验,结合我国实际,探讨了如何借鉴国外经验建立完善我国银行机构信用评级体系。     

发展具有国际话语权的民族信用评级机构

我国信用评级业起步于上世纪八十年代末,目前业务仅限于国内市场,在国际评级领域基本上不具有话语权,这种弱势地位与我国是世界最大债权国的经济地位形成巨大反差。同时,以穆迪、标准普尔和惠誉为代表的国际信用评级机构开始对我国信用评级市场进行渗透和控制,对我国的经济和金融安全造成了很大威胁。本文对我国信用评级机构缺乏国际话语权的危害和原因进行分析,并提出相应的对策建议。     

全球金融危机下国际信用评级改革及启示

2008年全球金融危机以来,针对信用评级业暴露出来的种种缺陷和问题,欧美各国及国际主要评级机构相继开展了一系列富有成效的改革。正确分析此次全球金融危机下国际信用评级机构暴露出的种种弊端,充分借鉴国际信用评级行业改革经验,对加快推进本国信用评级体系建设,具有重要意义。     

国际信用评级机构批判

掌控着信用评级的话语权,标准普尔、穆迪投资和惠誉国际（以下简称“三大”）可以对大到国家主权信用评头品足,小到对机构信誉说三道四,进而左右着投资者的行为和影响着国际资本的流向。然而,这些呼风唤雨的国际评级机构在用一个又一个神秘的符号彰显出自己精准预测能力的同时,也在金融市场上掀起了一股又一股怪诞与诡谲的风云。     

Special Issue on Market Development and Investment Strategies in Asia

Sovereign credit rating actions have attracted considerable attention recently. This study employs a rich and unique data set of ratings from six international agencies to investigate the causes of split sovereign ratings in emerging countries. Three reasons are identified in explaining the relatively high frequency of disagreement across agencies on emerging sovereign ratings. First, rating agencies use different economic factors and different weights on those factors. Second, rating agencies disagree to a greater extent about more opaque issuers. Third, for smaller rating agencies, issuers in their "home region" tend to be more favored. The findings should be of interest to a wide range of participants in global credit markets.     

Understanding credit ratings quality: Evidence from UK debt market participants

This study seeks to identify: (i) the demand for corporate bond ratings provided by credit ratings agencies (CRAs); (ii) how issuers select CRAs; and (iii) to better understand ratings quality, a term widely used by commentators, politicians and regulators, but under-explored in the academic literature. Interviews identify the principal source of demand for rating information is to reduce agency conflicts between issuers and investors. Issuers typically engage between one and three credit ratings agencies to rate their debt, implying a heterogeneous demand for ratings services, and different levels of ratings quality. However, ratings quality extends beyond competence and independence to include factors relating to professional judgment, communication, transparency, and the quality and continuity of analytic staff. Findings were discussed in the light of the ongoing international policy debate concerning CRAs.     

Are Unsolicited Credit Ratings Lower? International Evidence From Bank Ratings

Abstract:   In recent years credit rating agencies have started rating firms who have not asked for a rating. Recipients of unsolicited ratings argue that the assigned ratings are too low and reflect a lack of comprehensive knowledge of the rated firms. We set out to examine these claims using a comprehensive and international sample of 1,060 bank ratings. Our results show that there is a significant difference in the distributions of ratings, and the shadow group has lower ratings. The results also indicate that banks that received shadow ratings are smaller and have weaker financial profiles than banks that have other ratings. This explains, in part, the lower ratings. In addition, we develop a model to explain bank ratings. The two‐step treatment effects model shows that bank size, profitability, asset quality, liquidity, and sovereign credit risk are important factors in determining bank ratings.     

Credit ratings quality: The perceptions of market participants and other interested parties

The global credit crunch of 2008 and related sub-prime mortgage crisis of 2007 have made credit ratings agencies (CRAs) the focus of international attention. In particular, the quality of ratings information and the responsibilities CRAs owe to financial markets have come under intense scrutiny. Specifically, commentators, politicians, and regulators have expressed concern at the involvement CRAs might have had in creating global financial instability. However, the term ratings quality remains largely absent from the academic literature.This paper constructs a measurement instrument to capture ratings quality provided by CRAs, and assesses differences in perceptions of ratings quality amongst four stakeholder groups in public debt markets. Two macro-constructs of ratings quality are identified, labelled Technical Qualities and Relationship Qualities. The two macro-constructs are measured by ten micro-attributes, labelled: Cooperation; Independence; Internal Processes; Issuer Orientation; Methodology; Reputation; Service Quality; Shared Values and Norms; Transparency; and Trust. Each micro-attribute is operationalised into individual items, and then empirically tested using data obtained in the UK from 121 issuers, 75 non-debt issuing financial managers, 90 investors, and 120 other interested parties.The data suggest that ratings quality involves, in order of importance: the CRA's reputation; those values and norms of the CRA shared by users; the methodologies employed by the CRA; the independence of the CRA; and internal processes within the CRA. Multivariate analysis of variance finds no statistically significant variation between the groups for Technical Qualities factors. However, issuers rate Relationship Qualities and its micro-attributes of Trust, Issuer Orientation, and Service Quality higher than other market participants; a finding that reflects the dyadic relationship between the issuer's treasurer and lead analyst of the CRA. The paper concludes with a number of policy-relevant issues.     

Keeping up with the Joneses: Changing Rating Standards and the Buildup of Capital by U.S. Property-Liability Insurers

There has been a net propensity over the last decade for the dominant rating agency of the U.S. insurance industry, A.M. Best, to downgrade property-liability insurers. This could reflect a general deteriorating credit worthiness of the industry or an increase in the performance thresholds Best's has deemed necessary to achieve a given rating class. Consistent with a recent study of corporate bond ratings, we find evidence there has been an increase in rating stringency. Specifically, we show pressure for insurers to maintain their existing ratings provides a plausible explanation of the dramatic buildup of capital in the industry during the 1990s. In addition, our analysis suggests Best's raised the bar in terms of the capital required to maintain the highest ratings differentially relative to the increase in standards they required for lower rated categories. The actual pattern of capital buildup across firms in different rating categories is consistent with an attempt by high quality firms to defend these ratings.     

Testing for Opaqueness in the European Banking Industry: Evidence from Bond Credit Ratings

The question of whether banks are relatively more opaque than non-banking firms is empirically investigated by analyzing the disagreement between rating agencies (split ratings) on 2,473 bonds issued by European firms during the 1993–2003 period. Four main results emerge from the empirical analysis. First, fewer bank issues have split ratings overall, but the predicted probability of a split rating is higher for banks after controlling for risk and other issue characteristics. Second, subordinated bonds are subject to more disagreement between rating agencies. Third, bank opaqueness increases with financial assets and decreases with bank fixed assets. Fourth, bank opaqueness increases with bank size and capital ratio. The implications of these findings for regulatory policy are also discussed. All errors remain those of the author. This paper was prepared while the author was visiting the Department of Finance, Insurance and Real Estate at the Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Florida.     

An empirical assessment of commercial web-based professor evaluation services

We examined the validity of data found on a popular web-based, user-created commercial professor evaluation service, RateMyProfessors.com (RMP), in business school settings. We compared publicly available RMP data for two business schools with official faculty evaluations unavailable to the public. We find that students rate professors significantly lower on RMP than on official university evaluations. However, we also find that the rankings of official university evaluations and RMP are significantly correlated (p < .001), with correlation values high enough to provide useful data to students.