Prior research on the determinants of credit ratings has focused on rating agencies' use of
quantitative accounting information, but the there is scant evidence on the impact of textual …

Prior research shows that firms' financial statement comparability improves the accuracy of
market participants' valuation judgments and thus may reduce firms' costs of capital. Distinct …

Doubts about the accuracy with which outside investors can assess a banking firm's value
motivate many government interventions in the banking market. Although the available …

This paper investigates the relation between media coverage and offering yield spreads
using a comprehensive dataset of 5,338 industrial bonds issued from 1990 to 2011. We find …

Recent research establishes a negative relation between stock returns and dispersion of
analysts' earnings forecasts, arguing that asset prices more reflect the views of optimistic …

This study examines the determinants of real estate investment trust (REIT) capital structure
decisions from 1990 to 2008. Using a broad sample of 2,409 firm‐year observations, we find …

This study proposes an information asymmetry hypothesis to examine why bank credit
ratings vary among countries even when bank financial ratios remain constant. Countries …

We develop a rational expectations model in which an issuer purchases credit ratings
sequentially, deciding which to disclose to investors. Opacity about contacts between the …

Opacity fosters price contagion that exacerbates the speculative cycles of bubbles and
crashes that create financial instability. We find that banks with larger investments in opaque …

We find evidence of systematic optimism and pessimism among credit analysts, comparing
contemporaneous ratings of the same firm across rating agencies. These differences in …