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Credit rating agency downgrades and the Eurozone sovereign debt crises

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher F Baum

    (Boston College
    DIW Berlin)

  • Margarita Karpava

    (MediaCom London)

  • Dorothea Schäfer

    (DIW Berlin
    JIBS)

  • Andreas Stephen

    (JIBS
    DIW Berlin
    Ratio Institute Stockholm)

Abstract
This paper studies of credit rating agency (CRA) downgrade announcements on the value of the Euro and the yields of French, Italian, German and Spanish long-term sovereign bonds during the culmination of the Eurozone debt crisis in 2011-2012. The employed GARCH models show that CRA downgrade announcements negatively affected the value of the Euro currency and also increased the volatility. Downgrading increased the yields of French, Italian and Spanish bonds but lowered the German bond’s yields, although Germany’s rating status was never touched by CRA. There is no evidence for Gander causality from bond yields to rating announcement. We infer from these findings that CRA announcements increasingly influenced crisis-time capital allocation in the Eurozone. Their downgradings caused investors to rebalance their portfolio across member countries, out of ailing states’ debt into more stable borrowers’ securities.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher F Baum & Margarita Karpava & Dorothea Schäfer & Andreas Stephen, 2014. "Credit rating agency downgrades and the Eurozone sovereign debt crises," NBP Working Papers 177, Narodowy Bank Polski.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbp:nbpmis:177
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Credit Rating Agencies; Euro Crisis; Sovereign Debt; Euro Exchange Rate;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage
    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System
    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
    • F42 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - International Policy Coordination and Transmission
    • F65 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Finance

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