We examine whether credit rating agencies reward accurate or biased analysts. Using data collected from Moody's corporate debt credit reports, we find that Moody's is more likely to promote analysts who are accurate, but less likely to promote analysts who downgrade frequently. Combined,...

I consider four policies created to address the financial crisis: (1) the ability-to-repay requirement in mortgage underwriting; (2) reform of rating agency compensation, (3) risk retention in securitization, and (4) mandatory loan renegotiation. I show that according to standard models,...

For decades credit rating agencies were viewed as trusted arbiters of creditworthiness and their ratings as important tools for managing risk. The common narrative is that the value of ratings was compromised by the evolution of the industry to a form where issuers pay for ratings. In this paper...

We analyze a model where investors use a credit rating to decide whether to finance a firm. The rating quality depends on unobservable effort exerted by a credit rating agency (CRA). We study optimal compensation schemes for the CRA when a planner, the firm, or investors order the rating. Rating...

We examine whether rating agencies (Moody's, S&P, and Fitch) reward large issuers of mortgage-backed securities, who bring substantial business, by granting them unduly favorable ratings. The initial yield on both AAA-rated and non-AAA rated tranches sold by large issuers is higher than that on...

The credit rating industry has historically been dominated by just two agencies, Moody's and S&P, leading to longstanding legislative and regulatory calls for increased competition. The material entry of a third rating agency (Fitch) to the competitive landscape offers a unique experiment to...

We provide a comparison of salient organizational features of primary markets for foreign government debt over the very long run. We focus on output, quality control, information provision, competition, pricing, charging, and signaling. We find that the market setup experienced a radical...

Since June 2007, the creditworthiness of structured finance products has deteriorated rapidly. The number of downgrades in November 2007 alone exceeded 2,000 and many downgrades were severe, with 500 tranches downgraded more than 10 notches. Massive downgrades continued in 2008. More than 11,000...

In February 2003, the SEC officially certified a fourth credit rating agency, Dominion Bond Rating Service ("DBRS"), for use in bond investment regulations. After DBRS certification, bond yields change in the direction implied by the firm's DBRS rating relative to its ratings from other...

Many identify inflated credit ratings as one contributor to the recent financial market turmoil. We develop an equilibrium model of the market for ratings and use it to examine possible origins of and cures for ratings inflation. In the model, asset issuers can shop for ratings -- observe...