The main focus of this is the use of credit rating by public sector entities and especially by so called sub-soverign entities, i.e. those that are below the central government. Author is primarily trying to understand to what extent credit rating is used by public sector entities globally, what role it plays in their activities, what motivates these entities to seek services of credit rating agencies and ultimately what benefits, if any, credit rating bring to them.

Les agences de notations ont récemment été l'objet d'une grande attention. Leur responsabilité dans la crise des subprimes a été questionné. Les médias ont mis en avant les notes trop généreuses qui avaient été attribué à certains produits complexes, avant de s'interroger sur leur comportement quand elles ont dégradé les notes des dettes souveraines. Dans cette thèse, après avoir revu une partie de la littérature sur le sujet, je m'interroge sur deux aspects spécifique de leur activité:(i) Quels sont les conséquences de confier une information publique (comme une note de crédit) à une entité privée ?(ii) Les agences de notations disent avoir pour principal actif la réputation. Cette dernière peut expliquer pourquoi on observe des périodes de sur- notations et d'autres de sous-notations ? / Credit rating agencies have recently been under a lot of scrutiny. Their responsibility in the last financial crisis has been questioned. They received much attention from the media. The credit rating agencies have been blamed for their too generous ratings before the crisis and also for being too severe during the European debt crisis. In this thesis, after an overlook of the recent literature, I look at two specific issues related to their activity: • What issues arise when public information is released by a private entity on financial markets? • Can reputation explains why a credit rating agency can be caught underrating (respectively overrating)

The doctoral dissertation studies applications of the methods of qualitative modelling to solve problems associated with external credit ratings. Qualitative modelling is a tool which can solve tasks under shortage of relevant information items. Correlation analysis is used if relevant data sets are available and complement the qualitative analysis. External credit rating assessments are closely related to possibilities of insolvency of business entities and the subsequent bankruptcies. Mutual interlinks of bankruptcy probabilities and qualitative models are presented in details. Two specific models are given. Due to the adopted legislative measures were also tested match of the ratings from a variety of external credit rating agencies using cluster and correlation analysis. The above mentioned results are used to develop a qualitative model of external credit ratings, which is the main outcome of this dissertation. The results of model scenarios of assessment of the influence of regulation external credit rating on the business entity, investors, as well as regulatory authorities are presented in details.

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Privata kreditvärderingsinstitut publicerar, i egenskap av en oberoende tredje part, kreditbetyg som är ämnade att motarbeta informationsasymmetrier mellan investerare och emittent. På grund av issuer-pays modellen, den oligopolistiska strukturen av kreditvärderingsmarknaden samt kreditvärderingsinstitutens vinstdrivande affärsmodell hotas värderarens oberoende ställning och kapacitet att utföra och publicera de mest högkvalitativa, träffsäkra analyser. Detta arbete sammanställer befintliga studier kring ämnet samtidigt som den bidrar genom att utforska eventuella förslag att åtgärda de befintliga problemen i dagens system genom att antingen endast låta kreditvärdering att utföras av offentliga sektorn eller att tillgodose en övervakande myndighet uppdrag att betygsätta kreditvärderingsinstitutens kvalité. Betygsättning av kreditvärderingsinstitutens insatser kan komma att motverka förekomsten av rating catering, medan ett förbud mot privata kreditvärderingsinstitut skulle eliminera konkurrens som bidragande faktor till intressekonflikter och ratinginflation. Däremot medför båda förbättringsförslag egna risker och genomförbarheten av förslagen är ett stort frågetecken som måste studeras i större omfattning. / Credit rating agencies, operating as an independent third-party, publish credit ratings with the objective of counteracting information asymmetry between investor and investee. Due to the issuer-pays model, the oligopolistic structure of the credit rating market and the credit rating agencies’ profit-seeking business strategy, the independent nature of the credit rating agency is threatened. This paper deems to compile current theory on this topic while also furthering the discussion by proposing the examination of two alternative solutions: only allowing for credit rating to be carried out by the public sector, or giving a overseeing entity the assignment of publishing grades which distinguish between different agencies by way of credit rating quality. Grading credit rating agencies could likely hinder the presence of rating catering, meanwhile banning private credit rating agencies completely in favor of public sector alternatives eliminates the conflict of interest and rating inflation that originates from the presence of competition in this market. Both suggested solutions bear with them risks of their own, while also requiring further studies into the feasibility of the aforementioned suggestions in the current market.

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This dissertation consists of two topics. Chapter 1 explores the relationship between U.S. Property-Casualty (P/C) insurers’ underwriting risk, investment risk, and leverage risk, using data from 1998 to 2013. I test the trade-off hypothesis using a simultaneous equation model framework with partial adjustment effects. The three equations model intend to examine the interrelations between insurers’ leverage and two measures of firm risks: underwriting risk and investment risk. The empirical evidence, various to different sample periods and model specifications, suggests there is no significant relationship existing between insurers’ underwriting risk and investment risk. But these two types of risks are both significantly and negatively related to the leverage ratio. The overall results imply that insurers tend to tradeoff leverage risk and underwriting risk/investment risk, but it appears that they have not taken an integrated approach between the total level of underwriting risk and investment risk yet. The second part of this dissertation empirically investigates the impact of credit risk on insurers’ reinsurance demand, using data on the U.S. P/C insurance industry from 2000 to 2014. I mainly explore how insurers’ credit rating status and downgrade risk affects their reinsurance demand. Using a two-stage least square (2SLS) regression model, I find that low-rated insurers are associated with a higher utilization of reinsurance. In addition, insurers that are downgraded in the previous year tend to have a higher reinsurance demand than the others. Results also show that downgraded group-affiliated insurers tend to significantly increase their internal reinsurance demand from the group-affiliated members while decreasing the purchase of external reinsurance significantly. In general, I find that insurers’ reinsurance demand is affected by their credit rating and downgrade risk. / Business Administration/Risk Management and Insurance

Prior research on intra-firm pay disparity suggests intra-firm pay disparity at various hierarchy levels affects firm performance and executive-level pay disparity is related to investment risk in the credit and the equity market. However, none of the studies examine the relationship between CEO-to-worker pay disparity and credit investment risk. The purpose of this study is to investigate the association between CEO-to-worker pay disparity on credit investors' risk assessments. Large CEO-to-worker pay disparity could suggest CEO rent extraction which increases credit risk or effective labor cost management that decreases credit risk. Overall results of this study indicate increased CEO-to-worker pay disparity is associated with a lower cost of debt (a higher probability of credit rating upgrades). This association weakens as the growth rate of average employee pay increases and is more pronounced for labor-intensive firms than for capital-intensive firms, suggesting credit investors incorporate the information about the effectiveness of labor cost management in CEO-to-worker pay disparity in their risk assessments. In addition, the negative relationship between the change in CEO-to-worker pay disparity and the change in the cost of debt is less salient when CEO compensation increases rapidly. Further analysis shows the association is attenuated by increased excessive CEO compensation. The findings indicate credit investors also consider the risk arising from CEO rent extraction when they evaluate CEO-to-worker pay disparity. / Ph. D.

The main aim of this diploma thesis is to analyze benefits of the establishment of the European Rating Agency. The partial aim is to determine the influence of the credit ratings on economics situation in selected European countries and to analyze problems of current credit rating industry. A slight impact of the credit ratings on the observed countries has been found by way of the analysis of evolution of the yields of ten-year government bonds and the prices of CDS contracts on these bonds. Non-perfect competition, weak transparency of the rating process and conflict of interest are considered as the most important problems of the credit rating agencies. By way of the analysis of the ability of the European Rating Agency to remove or at least to partially eliminate discussed problems has been found that the European Rating Agency would not be able to remove all problems of the credit rating industry. The uncertainty about the independence of the European Rating Agency is the biggest weakness of this agency. For this reason, we can't expect that the European Rating Agency would be able to make the credit rating process more efficient and improve the situation in the credit rating industry.

Because the nature of municipalities differs from that of commercial institutions, norms and standards for the determination of creditworthiness are also different. Although various documented models and studies addressing credit rating related issues in the commercial sector are available, no objective model for determining the creditworthiness of municipalities has been published in South Africa. This model has been developed specifically for the determination of the creditworthiness of municipalities and is based on objective standards. All the indicators applied in the model are calculated objectively. The net product of the model is therefore a numerical figure indicating creditworthiness at a specific time. The model shows the numerical composition of the figure, and specific indicators or norms of interest can be studied in greater detail. The model has the following unique features: • It calculates a numerical value, representing the creditworthiness of a municipality. • The determination of the creditworthiness figure is objective. • Trends are calculated and form part of the calculation of the creditworthiness figure. • The model is parameter-driven - by merely changing the values in the parameter file, all the calculations are changed accordingly. • The creditworthiness figure from the model does not claim to be an absolutely accurate representation of the creditworthiness of a municipality, but claims to be accurate enough (80/20 principle) to form a basis for reliable and effective management decisions. This model is the first in South Africa. to offer a means of determining the creditworthiness of municipalities objectively. It is a simple model which is based on the elements representing creditworthiness. / Accounting / D. Comm. (Accounting)