Modelling sovereign credit ratings and assessing the impartiality: A case study of China

Min Su

PLOS ONE, 2023, vol. 18, issue 9, 1-26

Abstract: The post-COVID-19 era presents a looming threat of global debt, elevating concerns regarding sovereign credit ratings worldwide. This study develops a new index system, divides the rating variables into long- and short-term factors, performs rating fitting and prediction, and investigates the fairness of China and relevant countries. Our findings reveal that sovereign credit ratings have a deterrent effect on the global financial market due to the ceiling effect and quasi-public goods characteristics. A high and stable credit rating demands long-term enhancements in economic fundamentals, budget balances, external surpluses, and overall solvency. Concurrently, effective short-term debt management strategies, including reduction, repayment, and swaps, are essential. Moreover, we introduce the concept of a "rating gap" to assess rating fairness, revealing both undervaluation and overvaluation among countries. Notably, China’s sovereign rating was underestimated between 2009 and 2011 and overestimated between 2013 and 2016. These findings underscore the criticality of government vigilance in monitoring sovereign debt and credit ratings to navigate potential post-COVID-19 sovereign debt crises.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0289321 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 89321&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0289321

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0289321

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().