재무적 제약과 신용등급: BIR을 중심으로

Numerous studies have shown the effect of corporate credit rating adopted by rating agency on firm value. In general, there are particularly positive relationships between firm characteristics of good rating level and firm value. However, recent financial risks such as global financial crisis in 2008 and the collapse of business groups in Korea have drawn attention to credit rating agencies and their procedures. Since ratings of bonds change over time, issuers are upgraded (downgraded) when their likelihood of default as assessed by the credit rating company improves (deteriorates). However, many questions are being asked about the reliability of credit ratings as timely indicators of a company’s ability to repay its debt. In this paper, we examine the economic effect of the bond implied rating (BIR) which contains market rate of return in bond market to enhance the usefulness of rating affecting the company’s credit capability. To this end, we explore the impact of financial characters and financing constraints on the response of BIR together with the difference between agency rating (AR) and BIR. While BIR measurement reflects a PIT (point in time) level of credit quality over a short to medium term horizon, AR measures a TTC (through the cycle) with a long horizon. The empirical results are summarized as follows: First, we show that market-oriented BIR has the same information contents on the credit risk as well as AR. Second, grade rating of the firms with higher financial constraints has lower level expecting information content of the financial constraints. Our results suggest that it is necessary to consider the characteristics of BIR as a indicator to get more efficient performances following economic environmental weather changes. These results are consistent with the view that BIR usage is more pronounced when rating companies are reviewing for possible rating changes.