Performance measurement is one of the main issues in managerial decision-making. Credit ratings hold a specific place as an assessment tool. As an integral characteristic of fi nancial risks, they provide unifi cation and borrowing costs reduction as well as disclosure of an independent opinion. They can underpin regulatory actions and counterparties’ internal risk-management systems.

This monograph reveals the perception of ratings which has been established in the recent years. The focus is on studies about comparing rating scales, default probability modeling and constructing rating models, including topics on internal and external ratings for fi nancial institutions.

The book is based on research in these fi elds carried out by the author and his colleagues in the past ten years as well as on the experience in teaching master’s degree students at the Higher School of Economics and other universities. It sheds light on the contemporary trends in the research agenda and can be applied to develop a full-fledged master’s course. This book aims at a wide audience of professionals and can be practically applied by regulators and commercial banks.

The studies included in this collective monograph reflect the major problems of reception of authoritative texts, doctrines, and concepts throughout the history of European thought from the Patristic era to the beginning of the 17th century. The authors of the monograph perform an analysis of methods and genres of interpretation performed using little-known sources of philosophical and theological thought from the Antiquity and the Middle Ages. This includes the phenomenon of apocryphal literature in the first centuries of the Christian Era, patristic writings of the Christian Fathers, of educational and doctrinal literature of the Middle Ages, the writings of late medieval Mystics, Byzantinian theological works, journalism works of Greek-speaking authors through the era of Turkish domination, and the works of G erman humanist and Protestant writers during the Reformation.

For teachers and students of philosophy, philology, history departments, as well as for anyone interested in history of philosophical and theological thought, hermeneutics and philological culture.