IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-19-00559.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sovereign Ratings and Finance Ministers' Characteristics

Author

Listed:
  • Antonio Afonso

    (University of Lisbon)

  • Joao Tovar Jalles

    (University of Lisbon)

Abstract

We assess the effect of a newly-compiled set of finance ministers´ characteristics on long-term sovereign rating notations. Using a sample of 26 EU countries between 1980-2012, we find that the existence of more focused delegation-oriented fiscal framework, the Minister of Finance being a woman, and the Minister of Finance having a degree in the areas of finance or “hard sciences†contributes to better sovereign ratings, and the opposite in the case of a Law background.

Suggested Citation

  • Antonio Afonso & Joao Tovar Jalles, 2019. "Sovereign Ratings and Finance Ministers' Characteristics," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(4), pages 2999-3010.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-19-00559
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2019/Volume39/EB-19-V39-I4-P278.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ganapolsky, Eduardo J. J. & Schmukler, Sergio L., 1998. "The impact of policy announcements and news on capital markets : crisis management in Argentina during the Tequila Effect," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1951, The World Bank.
    2. Chava, Sudheer & Purnanandam, Amiyatosh, 2010. "CEOs versus CFOs: Incentives and corporate policies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 263-278, August.
    3. Otaviano Canuto & Pablo F. Pereira Dos Santos & Paulo C. De Sá Porto, 2012. "Macroeconomics And Sovereign Risk Ratings," Journal of International Commerce, Economics and Policy (JICEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 3(02), pages 1-25.
    4. Marc-Daniel Moessinger, 2014. "Do the personal characteristics of finance ministers affect changes in public debt?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 161(1), pages 183-207, October.
    5. Alexander W. Butler & Larry Fauver, 2006. "Institutional Environment and Sovereign Credit Ratings," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 35(3), Autumn.
    6. Jochimsen, Beate & Thomasius, Sebastian, 2014. "The perfect finance minister: Whom to appoint as finance minister to balance the budget," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 390-408.
    7. Marinda Pretorius & Ilsé Botha, 2016. "A Panel Ordered Response Model for Sovereign Credit Ratings in Africa," The African Finance Journal, Africagrowth Institute, vol. 18(1), pages 20-33.
    8. Afonso, António & Furceri, Davide & Gomes, Pedro, 2012. "Sovereign credit ratings and financial markets linkages: Application to European data," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 606-638.
    9. António Afonso & Pedro Gomes & Philipp Rother, 2011. "Short‐ and long‐run determinants of sovereign debt credit ratings," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(1), pages 1-15, January.
    10. António Afonso & Pedro Gomes & Philipp Rother, 2006. "What “Hides” Behind Sovereign Debt Ratings?," Working Papers Department of Economics 2006/35, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    11. Hu, Yen-Ting & Kiesel, Rudiger & Perraudin, William, 2002. "The estimation of transition matrices for sovereign credit ratings," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(7), pages 1383-1406, July.
    12. Antonio Afonso, 2003. "Understanding the determinants of sovereign debt ratings: Evidence for the two leading agencies," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 27(1), pages 56-74, March.
    13. Richard Cantor & Frank Packer, 1996. "Determinants and impact of sovereign credit ratings," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 2(Oct), pages 37-53.
    14. Li, Yiwei & Zeng, Yeqin, 2019. "The impact of top executive gender on asset prices: Evidence from stock price crash risk," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 528-550.
    15. Hill, Paula & Brooks, Robert & Faff, Robert, 2010. "Variations in sovereign credit quality assessments across rating agencies," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1327-1343, June.
    16. Marlene Amstad & Frank Packer, 2015. "Sovereign ratings of advanced and emerging economies after the crisis," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, December.
    17. António Afonso & Maria João Guedes, 2014. "EU Finance Ministers, Capital Markets and Fiscal Outcomes," Working Papers Department of Economics 2014/01, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    18. Bissoondoyal-Bheenick, Emawtee, 2005. "An analysis of the determinants of sovereign ratings," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 251-280, February.
    19. Mr. Christian B. Mulder & Brieuc Monfort, 2000. "Using Credit Ratings for Capital Requirementson Lending to Emerging Market Economies: Possible Impact of a New Basel Accord," IMF Working Papers 2000/069, International Monetary Fund.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Bernal, Oscar & Girard, Alexandre & Gnabo, Jean-Yves, 2016. "The importance of conflicts of interest in attributing sovereign credit ratings," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 48-66.
    2. Dilek Teker & Aynur Pala & Oya Kent, 2013. "Determination of Sovereign Rating: Factor Based Ordered Probit Models for Panel Data Analysis Modelling Framework," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 3(1), pages 122-132.
    3. Salvador, Carlos & Pastor, Jose Manuel & Fernández de Guevara, Juan, 2014. "Impact of the subprime crisis on bank ratings: The effect of the hardening of rating policies and worsening of solvency," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 11(C), pages 13-31.
    4. Slapnik, Ursula & Lončarski, Igor, 2023. "Understanding sovereign credit ratings: Text-based evidence from the credit rating reports," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    5. Choy, Swee Yew & Chit, Myint Moe & Teo, Wing Leong, 2021. "Sovereign credit ratings: Discovering unorthodox factors and variables," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    6. Huong Dang, 2014. "How dimensions of national culture and institutional characteristics influence sovereign rating migration dynamics," ZenTra Working Papers in Transnational Studies 42 / 2014, ZenTra - Center for Transnational Studies.
    7. Reusens, Peter & Croux, Christophe, 2017. "Sovereign credit rating determinants: A comparison before and after the European debt crisis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 108-121.
    8. Athari, Seyed Alireza & Kondoz, Mehmet & Kirikkaleli, Dervis, 2021. "Dependency between sovereign credit ratings and economic risk: Insight from Balkan countries," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    9. Aras, Osman Nuri & Öztürk, Mustafa, 2018. "The Effect of the Macroeconomic Determinants on Sovereign Credit Rating of Turkey," MPRA Paper 86642, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. De Moor, Lieven & Luitel, Prabesh & Sercu, Piet & Vanpée, Rosanne, 2018. "Subjectivity in sovereign credit ratings," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 366-392.
    11. Cuadros-Solas, Pedro Jesús & Salvador Muñoz, Carlos, 2022. "Disentangling the sources of sovereign rating adjustments: An examination of changes in rating policies following the GFC," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    12. António Afonso & Pedro Gomes & Philipp Rother, 2006. "What “Hides” Behind Sovereign Debt Ratings?," Working Papers Department of Economics 2006/35, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    13. Teixeira, João C.A. & Silva, Francisco J.F. & Ferreira, Manuel B.S. & Vieira, José A.C., 2018. "Sovereign credit rating determinants under financial crises," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 1-13.
    14. MIRICESCU, Emilian - Constantin, 2014. "Investigating The Determinants Of Long-Run Sovereign Rating," Studii Financiare (Financial Studies), Centre of Financial and Monetary Research "Victor Slavescu", vol. 18(3), pages 25-32.
    15. Hantzsche, Arno, 2022. "Fiscal uncertainty and sovereign credit risk," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    16. Zoran Ivanovic & Sinisa Bogdan & Suzana Baresa, 2015. "Modeling and Estimating Shadow Sovereign Ratings," Contemporary Economics, University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw., vol. 9(3), September.
    17. Afonso, António & Tovar Jalles, João & Venâncio, Ana, 2022. "Do financial markets reward government spending efficiency?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    18. Aktug, R. Erdem & Nayar, Nandkumar (Nandu) & Vasconcellos, Geraldo M., 2013. "Is sovereign risk related to the banking sector?," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 222-249.
    19. El-Shagi, Makram & von Schweinitz, Gregor, 2017. "Why they keep missing: An empirical investigation of rational inattention of rating agencies," IWH Discussion Papers 1/2017, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH), revised 2017.
    20. Dang, Huong & Partington, Graham, 2020. "Sovereign ratings and national culture," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    sovereign ratings; ordered probit; sovereign debt; panel data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H3 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents
    • G1 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets

    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:ebl:ecbull:eb-19-00559. 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: John P. Conley (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.