The aim of this chapter is to initiate a reflection about the potential connection between Credit Rating Agencies (CRA) performance and long-run macroeconomic performance based on the idea that inaccurate and volatile rating decisions can hinder the development of the financial system and...

Generally, information provision and certification have been identified as the major economic functions of rating agencies. This paper analyzes whether the watchlist (rating review) instrument has extended the agencies' role towards a monitoring position, as proposed by Boot, Milbourn, and...

This paper analyses the effect of soliciting a rating on the actual outcome of bank ratings. Using two sample banks (one rated by Fitch and one rated by S&P), I find evidence that unsolicited ratings tend to be lower than solicited ones, after accounting for differences in observable bank...

Drawing on the recent theoretical literature on credit rating agencies (CRAs), we provide a simple model that nests the following frictions: conflicts of interest between CRAs and in¬vestors, regulatory reliance on ratings, investor naiveté and opacity in the rating process. These frictions...

Credit rating agencies play a critical role in financial markets; by rating the creditworthiness of a wide range of borrowers - from corporations to sovereigns - these agencies add liquidity to markets that would otherwise be illiquid, promote efficiency within such markets, and perhaps most...

It is frequently argued that credit rating agencies (CRAs) have acted procyclically in their rating of sovereign debt in the European Monetary Union (EMU). They are believed to have under-rated sovereign risk in the early years of EMU, when integrated financial markets provided easier access to...

It is a matter of debate in how far credit ratings contribute to allocative efficiency or to excessive volatility of asset prices and cross-border capital flows. Yet it is generally taken for granted that ratings play a significant role in the transnationalization of financial relations. That...

The principal agent problem is one of the major issues of the credit rating agency market. Is it possible to solve the prevailing incentive problem of the market and contemporaneously satisfy the reputation demand of the investors? This paper presents an option for regulating the credit rating...

This paper studies the impact of credit rating agency (CRA) downgrade announcements on the value of the Euro and the yields of French, Italian, German and Spanish long-term sovereign bonds during the culmination of the Eurozone debt crisis in 2011-2012. The employed GARCH models show that CRA...

The aim of this paper is to examine what has been the role of information provision to the market throughout the crisis. We consider two main sources of information to the market, financial statements and information provided by credit rating agencies. We examine how these sources of information...