Moody’s Ratings Statistical Forecasting for Industrial and Retail Firms

Long-term ratings of companies are obtained from public data plus some additional nondisclosed information. A model based on data from firms’ public accounts is proposed to directly obtain these ratings, showing fairly close similitude with published results from Credit Rating Agencies. The rating models used to assess the creditworthiness of a firm may involve some possible conflicts of interest, as companies pay for most of the rating process and are, thus, clients of the rating firms. Such loss of faith among investors and criticism toward the rating agencies were especially severe during the financial crisis in 2008. To overcome this issue, several alternatives are addressed; in particular, the focus is on elaborating a rating model for Moody’s long-term companies’ ratings for industrial and retailing firms that could be useful as an external check of published rates. Statistical and artificial intelligence methods are used to obtain direct prediction of awarded rates in these sectors, without aggregating adjacent classes, which is usual in previous literature. This approach achieves an easy-to-replicate methodology for real rating forecasts based only on public available data, without incurring the costs associated with the rating process, while achieving a higher accuracy. With additional sampling information, these models can be extended to other sectors.

Bank Credit Risk Rating Process: Is There a Difference Between Agencies?

The purpose of this article is to compare the bank credit risk rating (BCRR) process between credit rating agency (CRA) after the 2012 revision of their methodologies using 76 banks from 23 EMENA countries rated simultaneously by S&P's, Moody's and FitchRatings. We made this comparison based on the CAMELS model with a proposed 'S’ to BCRR. We use “ordered logit” regression for the rating classes and we complete our analysis by “linear multiple” regression for the rating grades. The results show that the BCRR processes are largely consistent between agencies but not aligned. Some differences appear in the important factors and relevant variables of the intrinsic credit quality component that manifest themselves in specific behaviors distinguishing one agency to another. The three agencies agree on the factors: Capital, Earnings, Liquidity and Supports and the most relevant support variable is the sovereign rating of the bank's country of establishment. The results also confirm a consistence between the BCRR's revealed and practiced methodologies revised by the CRA.

Bank Credit Risk Rating Process: Is There a Change With the 2007-09 Crisis?

The purpose of this article is to study empirically the bank credit risk rating (BCRR) process over time using 89 banks from 27 EMENA countries rated by S&P’s simultaneously before and after 2007-09 crises. We made this comparison based on the CAMELS model with a proposed ‘S’ to BCRR. We use "ordered logit" regression for the rating classes and we complete our analysis by “linear multiple” regression for the rating grades. The results show that the rating changes in 2012 are mainly a methodology revision consequence of the entire rating process changes, including the weight of components, the important factors and the relevant variables in order to take into account some of the lessons learned from this global crisis. They also show a consistence between the BCRR's revealed and practiced methodologies revised by the credit rating agencies (CRAs).

Evaluating the integration of palliative care in national health systems: an indicator rating process with EAPC task force members to measure advanced palliative care development

Background Palliative care (PC) development cannot only be assessed from a specialized provision perspective. Recently, PC integration into other health systems has been identified as a component of specialized development. Yet, there is a lack of indicators to assess PC integration for pediatrics, long-term care facilities, primary care, volunteering and cardiology. Aim To identify and design indicators capable of exploring national-level integration of PC into the areas mentioned above. Methods A process composed of a desk literature review, consultation and semi-structured interviews with EAPC task force members and a rating process was performed to create a list of indicators for the assessment of PC integration into pediatrics, long-term care facilities, primary care, cardiology, and volunteering. The new indicators were mapped onto the four domains of the WHO Public Health Strategy. Results The literature review identified experts with whom 11 semi-structured interviews were conducted. A total of 34 new indicators were identified for national-level monitoring of palliative care integration. Ten were for pediatrics, five for primary care, six for long-term care facilities, seven for volunteering, and six for cardiology. All indicators mapped onto the WHO domains of policy and education while only pediatrics had an indicator that mapped onto the domain of services. No indicators mapped onto the domain of use of medicines. Conclusion Meaningful contributions are being made in Europe towards the integration of PC into the explored fields. These efforts should be assessed in future regional mapping studies using indicators to deliver a more complete picture of PC development.

The structure of Albanian personality descriptive trait-adjectives: A psycho-lexically based taxonomy

In this study, we describe the taxonomy of personality descriptive trait terms in the Albanian language according to the psycho-lexical procedure, in two parts. In the first part the selection of trait terms from a standard Albanian dictionary took place, largely according to standard procedures. This resulted in a useful set of 607 personality relevant terms. In the second part this list of trait terms was administered to 497 participants to obtain self-ratings. During the rating process, participants could indicate their familiarity with the terms, leading to another reduction to a final set of 434 trait terms with self-ratings. Principal Components Analysis followed by Varimax rotation was applied both using raw data and using ipsatized data. Structures with one up to seven factors were discussed and represented in a hierarchy of factor solutions. As an aid to the interpretation of the factors, use was made of markers of the Big Five, selected from the full list of 434 terms. The most comprehensive and clearest structure was found with seven factors, which included the Big Five and both Negative Valence and Positive Valence.

Agree to disagree: Examining the psychometrics of cybervetting

PurposeDue to the paucity of research on web-based job applicant screening (i.e. cybervetting), the purpose of the current study was to examine the psychometric properties of cybervetting, including an examination of the impact of adding structure to the rating process.Design/methodology/approachUsing a mixed-factorial design, 122 supervisors conducted cybervetting evaluations of applicant personality, cognitive ability, written communication skills, professionalism, and overall suitability. Cross-method agreement (i.e. the degree of similarity between cybervetting ratings and other assessment methods), as well as interrater reliability and agreement were examined, and unstructured versus structured cybervetting rating formats were compared.FindingsCybervetting assessments demonstrated high interrater reliability and interrater agreement, but only limited evidence of cross-method agreement was provided. In addition, adding structure to the cybervetting process did not enhance the psychometric properties of this assessment technique.Practical implicationsThis study highlighted that whereas cybervetting raters demonstrated a high degree of consensus in cybervetting-based attributions, there may be concerns regarding assessment accuracy, as cybervetting-based ratings generally differed from applicant test scores and self-assessment ratings. Thus, employers should use caution when utilizing this pre-employment screening technique.Originality/valueWhereas previous research has suggested that cybervetting ratings demonstrate convergence with other traditional assessments (albeit with relatively small effects), these correlational links do not provide information regarding cross-method agreement or method interchangeability. Thus, this study bridges a crucial gap in the literature by examining cross-method agreement for a variety of job-relevant constructs, as well as empirically testing the impact of adding structure to the cybervetting rating process.