Dr Daniel Cash

Sign in Subscribe

Economic Governance

Who Writes a Country’s Credit Story?

Who Writes a Country’s Credit Story?

Every sovereign credit rating tells a story about a country’s capacity and willingness to pay. That story is co-authored. Agencies apply their methods, markets respond, and governments provide the foundations. The next step for sovereign financial governance is to build an upstream function that joins data quality, fiscal

The Natural Oligopoly: How Investors Keep the Rating Agencies in Power

The Natural Oligopoly: How Investors Keep the Rating Agencies in Power

Earlier this month (October), Andrew Bailey stood before the House of Lords Financial Services Regulation Committee and said something striking. When asked about private credit, he recalled what industry figures had told him: everything looked fine, apart from the role of the rating agencies. Then he asked, “Well, we’re

The Reform Mirage: Why London’s ‘Debt Pause’ Plan Protects Creditors, Not Countries

The Reform Mirage: Why London’s ‘Debt Pause’ Plan Protects Creditors, Not Countries

Another market innovation has arrived out of London. The Bondholder Working Group of the London Coalition for Sustainable Sovereign Debt has published a consultative paper proposing ‘Broad Debt Pause Clauses’ for emerging market bonds. The language is careful, the formatting professional. The proposal promises standardised clauses, investor protections, and enhanced

Delegated Sovereignty: How the Governance of Eurobond Pricing Defines the Cost of Being a State

Delegated Sovereignty: How the Governance of Eurobond Pricing Defines the Cost of Being a State

Recent sovereign Eurobond issuances from African states have demonstrated remarkable investor appetite. Order books routinely exceed initial targets by factors of three, four, sometimes five. The transactions close successfully. Capital flows arrive on schedule. Official announcements celebrate the depth of international confidence. The coupons, however, tell a different story. Yields

When the Agencies Disagree

When the Agencies Disagree

On Thursday, October 9th, Reuters reported that S&P Global was widely expected to leave Italy’s rating unchanged at BBB+ with a stable outlook, even as the country’s deficit fell to 3 per cent of GDP for the first time since before COVID. Fitch, by contrast, had

GDP as a Metric: The Shared Language Problem

GDP as a Metric: The Shared Language Problem

In sovereign finance, numbers travel. They cross borders, cultures, and currencies with a clarity that policy aspirations rarely match. When Moody’s downgrades a government or S&P assigns a new rating, the conversation that follows - between analysts and investors, ministers and markets - begins with the same vocabulary: GDP

The Vanishing AAA: How Ratings Have Redefined ‘Safe’ Debt

The Vanishing AAA: How Ratings Have Redefined ‘Safe’ Debt

In 1984, when the FTSE World Government Bond Index launched, it captured something close to perfection. Nearly every government bond in the index carried a triple-A rating. The world’s safest assets, neatly packaged and weighted, offering investors a map of pristine sovereign credit. Today, that map tells a