This paper studies whether credit ratings can alleviate the hold-up problem between small opaque firms and informed banks. We exploit a refinement of the rating information produced by a state-owned rating agency and available to all lenders, which causes some firms to receive a positive rating...

Do rating announcements reduce information asymmetries? We investigate the effect of rating disclosures on the volatility and liquidity of the US bond market. Although rating agencies' decisions often are anticipated by credit spread changes, we show that in the case of no regulatory change...