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Purpose: The fundamental theory of Modigliani and Miller (1958) states that a firm's financing decisions are independent from the firm's value. Nevertheless, several empirical studies as well as theoretical approaches from the past decade impugn this relation for real markets with their immanent inefficiencies. However, these questions are rather than academic in nature: Especially the influence of macroeconomic conditions on the market perception of debt issues is from high economic importance, since the need for new liquidity usually becomes even more urgent when the economic conditions worsen. Design/methodology/approach: This paper analyzes the reaction of shareholders to the issue of debt by Latin American firms under special consideration of the macroeconomic sentiment. To do so, a sample of debt issued by Latin American companies between 2003 and 2010 is empirically examined through an event study. Findings: The authors empirically demonstrate that specifically in Latin America, debt issuing companies show a significant underperformance during recessionary periods and an overperformance during nonrecessionary periods. These findings differ from previous results for mature capital markets. The authors conclude that not only the overall economic conditions matter to explain stock market reactions on bond issues but also the maturity of the corporate debt market plays an important role. Originality/value: The authors provide first evidence that the previously described changes in the returns on specific stocks depending on the economic sentiment (Baker and Wurgler, 2006) are under certain conditions also present in the market for corporate debt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on liquidity risk of corporate bond, and it collects panel data from 2014 to 2018 in Corporate bond Exchange center in China. It measures liquidity by issued amount, trading turnover, squared price return, volume and bond age. In the regression Squared price return is significant, and the squared price return could indicate to what extent the bond is underpriced. At the same time, corporate bond trading volumes increase, but liquidity risk premium decreases, so the corporate bond spread decreases. Also, the large issued amount indicates high liquidity. In the paper, it finds that the threshold of 12 months is the best in corporate bond market in Exchange in China, and the liquidity risk premium which presented by age is a very important part in corporate bond spread. The results above are consistent with the hypotheses. But in the regression, the variable of corporate bond trades is positively correlated with corporate bond spread, and it’s different from the null hypothesis. It infers that there’re several reasons, maybe too much missing data in the sample or the samples are in an economic crisis period. Overall, issued amount, squared price return, volume and trading turnover are proxies of liquidity risk, however they are less important than bond age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: During the recent credit crisis credit rating agencies (CRAs) became increasingly lax in their rating of structured products, yet increasingly stringent in their rating of corporate bonds. We examine a model in which a CRA operates in both the market for structured products and for corporate debt, and shares a common reputation across the two markets. We find that, as a CRA’s reputation becomes good enough, it can be optimal for it to inflate its ratings with probability one in the structured products market, but inflate its ratings with probability zero in the corporate bond market. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper investigates the incentive of credit rating agencies (CRAs) to bias ratings using a semiparametric, ordered-response model. The proposed model explicitly takes conflicts of interest into account and allows the ratings to depend flexibly on risk attributes through a semiparametric index structure. Asymptotic normality for the estimator is derived after using several bias correction techniques. Using Moody's rating data from 2001 to 2016, I found that firms related to Moody's shareholders were more likely to receive better ratings. Such favorable treatments were more pronounced in investment grade bonds compared with high yield bonds, with the 2007–2009 financial crisis being an exception. Parametric models, such as the ordered-probit, failed to identify this heterogeneity of the rating bias across different bond categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]