Charitable bodies hit by credit crisis

3 The Credit Rating Crisis

By December 2008, structured finance securities accounted for over $11 trillion worth of outstanding U.S. bond market debt (35%). The lion’s share of these securities was highly rated by rating agencies. More than half of the structured finance securities rated by Moody’s carried a AAA rating—the highest possible credit rating. In 2007 and 2008, the creditworthiness of structured finance securi...

Credit risk models : why they failed in the credit crisis

How Credit Cycles across a Financial Crisis

We study the behavior of credit and output across a financial crisis cycle using information from credit spreads. We show the transition into a crisis occurs with a large increase in credit spreads, indicating that crises involve a dramatic shift in expectations and are a surprise. The severity of the subsequent crisis can be forecast by the size of credit losses (change in spreads) coupled wit...

Hit Parade: The Future of the Sports Concussion Crisis

While concussions have long been linked to brain and central nervous system issues, a new study suggests that repeated hits to the head-mild or otherwise-can lead to memory loss, depression, and dementia. This postmortem brain study, conducted at the Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, provides new and troubling evidence about chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CT...

A Charitable giving by individuals

Origins and consequences of charitable confidence are investigated with the Giving in the Netherlands Panel Survey 2002-2004 (n=1,246). Charitable confidence is higher among the higher educated, children of volunteers, younger age groups, those with more faith in people, those who are aware of standards of excellence for fundraising organizations, and among persons with altruistic and joy-of-gi...