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Split ratings and the pricing of credit risk

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Author Info
Richard Cantor
Frank Packer
Kevin Cole

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Abstract

Despite the fact that over 50 percent of all corporate bonds have different ratings from Moody's and Standard and Poor's at issuance, most bond pricing models ignore these differences of opinion. Our work compares a number of different methods of accounting for split ratings in estimating bond pricing models. We find that pricing rules that use only the Moody's or Standard and Poor's ratings produce unbiased but highly inefficient forecasts. If models rely instead on simply the higher or lower of the two ratings (but not both), greater bias is introduced with insignificant gains in efficiency. In general, the average rating is the best guide to predicting yields in terms of both bias and forecast prediction. However, the forecasting advantage from using the average rating rather than the lower rating derives almost entirely from the below-investment-grade subsample.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of New York in its series Research Paper with number 9711.

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Date of creation: 1997
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fednrp:9711

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Related research
Keywords: Credit ; Bonds ; Risk;

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

  1. Lee Crabbe, 1991. "Callable corporate bonds: a vanishing breed," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 155, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  2. Lamy, Robert E. & Thompson, G. Rodney, 1988. "Risk premia and the pricing of primary issue bonds," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 585-601, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Liu, Pu & Moore, William T, 1987. "The Impact of Split Bond Ratings on Risk Premia," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 22(1), pages 71-85, February.
  4. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-38, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Allen, David S & Lamy, Robert E & Thompson, G Rodney, 1990. " The Shelf Registration of Debt and Self Selection Bias," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(1), pages 275-87, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Thompson, G Rodney & Vaz, Peter, 1990. "Dual Bond Ratings: A Test of the Certification Function of Rating Agencies," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 25(3), pages 457-71, August.
  7. Diebold, Francis X & Mariano, Roberto S, 1995. "Comparing Predictive Accuracy," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 13(3), pages 253-63, July.
    Other versions:
  8. Fabozzi, Frank J. & West, Richard R., 1981. "Negotiated versus Competitive Underwritings of Public Utility Bonds: Just One More Time," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(03), pages 323-339, September. [Downloadable!]
  9. Crabbe, Leland, 1991. " Event Risk: An Analysis of Losses to Bondholders and "Super Poison Put" Bond Covenants," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(2), pages 689-706, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Ma, Christopher K & Rao, Ramesh P & Peterson, Richard L, 1989. " The Resiliency of the High-Yield Bond Market: The LTV Default," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 44(4), pages 1085-97, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Maxime Merli & Alain Schatt, 2007. "Are there contagion or competition effects for non rated firms?The case of successive bond rating downgrades of Alcatel," Working Papers FARGO 1070603, Université de Bourgogne - Latec/Fargo (Research center in Finance,organizational ARchitecture and GOvernance). [Downloadable!]
  2. Eli M. Remolona & Michela Scatigna & Eliza Wu, 2008. "A ratings-based approach to measuring sovereign risk," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(1), pages 26-39. [Downloadable!]
  3. Oda, Nobuyuki, 1999. "Estimating Fair Premium Rates for Deposit Insurance Using Option Pricing Theory: An Empirical Study of Japanese Banks," Monetary and Economic Studies, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, vol. 17(1), pages 133-70, May. [Downloadable!]
  4. Darren J. Kisgen & Philip E. Strahan, 2009. "Do Regulations Based on Credit Ratings Affect a Firm's Cost of Capital?," NBER Working Papers 14890, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Ginger Zhe Jin & Andrew Kato & John A. List, 2006. "That's News to Me! Information Revelation in Professional Certification Markets," NBER Working Papers 12390, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Maxime Merli & Alain Schatt, 2003. "Contagion effects of successive bond rating downgrades," Working Papers of LaRGE (Laboratoire de Recherche en Gestion et Economie) 2003-02, Laboratoire de Recherche en Gestion et Economie, Université de Strasbourg (France). [Downloadable!]
  7. Mattarocci, Gianluca, 2005. "Il rapporto tra impresa e agenzia di rating: la soluzione del multi-rating
    [The relevance of multi-rating in the world market]    ," MPRA Paper 4295, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Mar 2005. [Downloadable!]
  8. Hervé Alexandre & Maxime Merli, 2003. "Notations et écarts de rentabilité:le marché français avant l'euro," Revue Finance Contrôle Stratégie, Editions Economica, vol. 6(3), pages 5-22, September. [Downloadable!]
  9. Antonio Di Cesare, 2006. "Do market-based indicators anticipate rating agencies? Evidence for international banks," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 593, Bank of Italy, Economic Research Department. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  10. Volker G. Heinke, 2006. "Credit spread volatility, bond ratings and the risk reduction effect of watchlistings," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(4), pages 293-303. [Downloadable!]
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