Business Commons^™

Three Essays On Opacity, Corporate Governance, And Credit Ratings, Yiwen Gu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the first essay, utilizing a more recent and expanded 20-year sample 1991-2010 of dual-rated bonds issued, I confirm Morgan's (2002) finding that banks are relatively more opaque than nonbanks. The likelihood of a rating split is higher, and the magnitude of the rating gap is larger, for banks than nonnbanks. Moreover, rating agency disagreements are more significant for banks with relatively higher loan and trading securities holdings and maintain lower capital, and for banks engaged in mortgage securitization. Importantly, I find that rating agency disagreements reflect market proxies of information uncertainty. Further, opacity makes external financing more costly. Equity …