IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/finmar/v25y2016i1p49-74.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Technology of Ratings Then and Now; Hiding in Plain Sight

Author

Listed:
  • Berry K. Wilson
  • John T. Donnellan

Abstract

The subprime crisis seriously undermined the credibility of the rating agencies and their approach to analyzing credit risk. Along with other identified problems with bond ratings, this study investigates the issue that the technology used by the ratings agencies is at best dated and little changed since John Moody published his first bond ratings in 1909. The study compares the predictive accuracy of Moody's bond ratings with the structural modeling approach of Vassalou and Xing (2004), using railroad data from the Great Depression. Study results show that the structural modeling approach outperforms the expert judgment incorporated in Moody's bond ratings from that period.

Suggested Citation

  • Berry K. Wilson & John T. Donnellan, 2016. "The Technology of Ratings Then and Now; Hiding in Plain Sight," Financial Markets, Institutions & Instruments, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(1), pages 49-74, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:finmar:v:25:y:2016:i:1:p:49-74
    DOI: 10.1111/fmii.12035
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/fmii.12035
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/fmii.12035?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:bla:jfinan:v:44:y:1989:i:4:p:909-22 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Merton, Robert C, 1974. "On the Pricing of Corporate Debt: The Risk Structure of Interest Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 29(2), pages 449-470, May.
    3. Edwin J. Elton & Martin J. Gruber & Deepak Agrawal & Christopher Mann, 2001. "Explaining the Rate Spread on Corporate Bonds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 247-277, February.
    4. Edward I. Altman, 1973. "Predicting Railroad Bankruptcies in America," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 4(1), pages 184-211, Spring.
    5. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    6. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:2:p:831-868 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Kaplan, Robert S & Urwitz, Gabriel, 1979. "Statistical Models of Bond Ratings: A Methodological Inquiry," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(2), pages 231-261, April.
    8. Crouhy, Michel & Galai, Dan & Mark, Robert, 2000. "A comparative analysis of current credit risk models," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(1-2), pages 59-117, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Patrycja Klusak & Moritz Kraemer & Huong Vu, 2022. "First‐mover disadvantage: the sovereign ratings mousetrap," Financial Markets, Institutions & Instruments, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(1), pages 3-44, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brian BARNARD, 2017. "Rating Migration and Bond Valuation: Decomposing Rating Migration Matrices from Market Data via Default Probability Term Structures," Expert Journal of Finance, Sprint Investify, vol. 5(1), pages 49-72.
    2. Brian BARNARD, 2018. "Rating Migration and Bond Valuation: Ahistorical Interest Rate and Default Probability Term Structures," Expert Journal of Finance, Sprint Investify, vol. 6(1), pages 16-30.
    3. Brian BARNARD, 2017. "Rating Migration and Bond Valuation: Decomposing Rating Migration Matrices from Market Data via Default Probability Term Structures," Expert Journal of Finance, Sprint Investify, vol. 5, pages 49-72.
    4. Jens Hilscher & Mungo Wilson, 2017. "Credit Ratings and Credit Risk: Is One Measure Enough?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(10), pages 3414-3437, October.
    5. Pesaran, M. Hashem & Schuermann, Til & Treutler, Bjorn-Jakob & Weiner, Scott M., 2006. "Macroeconomic Dynamics and Credit Risk: A Global Perspective," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(5), pages 1211-1261, August.
    6. Diaz Weigel, Diana & Gemmill, Gordon, 2006. "What drives credit risk in emerging markets? The roles of country fundamentals and market co-movements," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 476-502, April.
    7. Alejandro Revéiz Hérault, "undated". "Factores determinantes de los márgenes entre bonos del gobierno y bonos corporativos en los Estados Unidos," Lecturas en Finanzas 002710, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    8. Menz, Klaus-Michael, 2010. "Market discipline and the evaluation of Euro financial bonds--An empirical analysis," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 315-328, September.
    9. John Y. Campbell & Jens Hilscher & Jan Szilagyi, 2008. "In Search of Distress Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(6), pages 2899-2939, December.
    10. Vink, Dennis, 2007. "An Empirical Analysis of Asset-Backed Securitization," MPRA Paper 10382, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 25 Aug 2008.
    11. Giesecke, Kay & Longstaff, Francis A. & Schaefer, Stephen & Strebulaev, Ilya, 2011. "Corporate bond default risk: A 150-year perspective," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(2), pages 233-250.
    12. Berndt, Antje & Obreja, Iulian, 2007. "The pricing of risk in European credit and corporate bond markets," Working Paper Series 805, European Central Bank.
    13. Maclachlan, Iain C, 2007. "An empirical study of corporate bond pricing with unobserved capital structure dynamics," MPRA Paper 28416, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Liz Dixon-Smith & Roman Goossens & Simon Hayes, 2005. "Default probabilities and expected recovery: an analysis of emerging market sovereign bonds," Bank of England working papers 261, Bank of England.
    15. Becchetti, Leonardo & Carpentieri, Andrea & Hasan, Iftekhar, 2009. "The determinants of option-adjusted delta credit spreads : a comparative analysis of the United States, the United Kingdom and the euro area," Research Discussion Papers 34/2009, Bank of Finland.
    16. Wilson Sy, 2007. "A Causal Framework for Credit Default Theory," Research Paper Series 204, Quantitative Finance Research Centre, University of Technology, Sydney.
    17. Mäkinen, Taneli & Sarno, Lucio & Zinna, Gabriele, 2020. "Risky bank guarantees," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(2), pages 490-522.
    18. Gemmill, Gordon & Keswani, Aneel, 2011. "Downside risk and the size of credit spreads," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(8), pages 2021-2036, August.
    19. de Groot, Wilma & Huij, Joop, 2018. "Are the Fama-French factors really compensation for distress risk?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 50-69.
    20. Jennie Bai & Pierre Collin-Dufresne & Robert S. Goldstein & Jean Helwege, 2012. "On bounding credit event risk premia," Staff Reports 577, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:finmar:v:25:y:2016:i:1:p:49-74. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.