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Bond Ratings
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Definition of Bond Ratings: Organizations like Standard and Poor's and Moody's rate the riskiness of corporate, municipal, and government issued securities and gives each security a Bond Rating. The bond rating, or more accurately the risk, is based on two elements: the probability the organization will file for bankruptcy before the final bond payment is due and what percentage of the bondholder's clams creditors will receive if a bankruptcy takes place.

Terms related to Bond Ratings:
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About.Com Resources on Bond Ratings:

Writing a Term Paper? Here are a few starting points for research on Bond Ratings:

Books on Bond Ratings:

  • Solvency assessment and annual reporting : an empirical study on the informative value of annual reports based on bond rating - Bart Kamp, Tilburg University Press, 1998.
  • Corporate bond rating drift : an examination of credit quality rating changes over time - Edward I Altman and Duen Li Kao, The Research Foundation of the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts, 1991.
  • The rating game : report of the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on Municipal Bond Credit Ratings - John E Petersen, Kraus Reprint Co., 1977.
  • A proposed model of industrial bond rating : analysis and comparison - George Moshe Frankfurter and William L Langdon, Management Research Center, School of Management, Syracuse University, 1976.
Journal Articles on Bond Ratings:
  • Using Fuzzy Rule-Based Systems to Evaluate Overall Financial Performance of Governments: An Enhancement to the Bond Rating Process - Salwa Ammar, Public Budgeting and Finance 21, no. 4 (2001): 91-110.
  • The Effect of Bond Rating Changes and New Ratings on UK Stock Returns - M.J. Barron, A.D. Clare, and S.H. Thomas, Journal of Business Finance & Accounting 24, no. 3 (1997): 497.
  • The Long-Run Stock Returns Following Bond Rating Changes - Ilia D. Dichev, Joseph D. Piotroski, Journal of Finance v56, n1 (February 2001): 173-203.
  • The Real Function of Bond Rating Agencies - L. Macdonald Wakeman, The revolution in corporate finance (1998): 25-28.
  • Cross-Sectional Variation in the Stock Market Reaction to Bond Rating Changes - Jeremy C. Goh, Louis H. Ederington, Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance v39, n1 (Spring 1999): 101-12.
  • Bond Rating Agencies and Stock Analysts: Who Knows What When? - Jeremy C. Goh, Louis H. Ederington, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis v33, n4 (December 1998): 569-85.
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