An Expanded Commercial Paper Rating Scale: Classification of Industrial Issuers

The finance literature contains many examples of attempts to classify bond issuers into rating categories and to identify the key variables which contribute to bond rating differences. This study extends the classification literature to include industrial commercial paper issuers. Standard and Poor's has expanded its A‐ 1 commercial paper category, and hypothesized division characteristics are proposed, followed by the classification test. The relative comparability of key variables in this study to those in bond studies is striking.