“minus,” and “plus.” Thus, for example, an episode of relatively minor financial distress could
be classified as “credit disruption–minus,” “credit disruption–regular,” or “credit disruption–
plus.” In our empirical work, we convert these categories into a numerical scale. Cases where
there is no financial distress are assigned a zero. Positive levels of distress start at 1 for a credit
disruption–minus and go through 15 for an extreme crisis–plus.