The Information Value of Credit Rating Action Reports: A Textual Analysis

Sumit Agarwal (), Vincent Y. S. Chen () and Weina Zhang
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Sumit Agarwal: NUS Business School, National University of Singapore, Singapore 119245
Vincent Y. S. Chen: Department of Accounting, National Chengchi University, Taiwan 11605; and Department of Accounting, National University of Singapore, Singapore 119245

Management Science, 2016, vol. 62, issue 8, 2218-2240

Abstract: We examine whether Standard & Poor’s (S&P) credit rating action reports contain new default-related information beyond credit rating actions such as rating changes, credit watch, and outlooks. We find that the net linguistic tone (negative minus positive tone) in the reports is significantly and negatively related to abnormal returns and predicts future rating changes. We discover that the provision of tone does not seem to be inflated by the conventional proxies of conflict of interest faced by S&P, as higher conflict of interest is related to more negative net tone. Moreover, the tone can predict future rating changes even when conflict of interest is high. Overall, our study reveals novel evidence on the information value of credit rating action reports. This paper was accepted by Wei Jiang, finance .

Keywords: credit ratings; credit rating agencies; credit rating action reports; linguistic tone (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

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