This paper tests for conflicts of interest in the rating process of asset- and mortgage-backed securities based on a new aggregation method for a deal's different tranche ratings. Controlling for a large set of determinants of credit risk, we find that credit rating agencies provide better...

When innovation is cumulative, patent protection on early inventions can generate holdup problems if later complementary patents are owned by different firms. Consistent with the property rights literature, we show that shareholder ownership overlap across firms with patent complementarities...