Random effects model for credit rating transitions

This paper proposes a random effects multinomial regression model to estimate transition probabilities of credit ratings. Unlike the previous studies on the rating transition, we applied a random effects model, which accommodates not only the environmental characteristics of the exposures of a rating but also the uncertainty not explained by such factors. The rating category specific factors such as retained earning and market equity are included in our proposed model. The random effects model provides less diagonally dominant matrix, where the transition probabilities are over-dispersed from the diagonal elements. Our study is expected to incorporate potential chances of rating transitions due to extra random variations. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.