We investigate a prominent allegation in Congressional hearings that Moody's loosened its standards for assigning credit ratings after it went public in the year 2000 in an attempt to chase market share and increase revenue. We exploit a difference-in-difference design by benchmarking Moody's...

We investigate a prominent allegation in congressional hearings that Moody's loosened its rating standards to chase revenue after it went public in 2000. Consistent with this allegation, Moody's ratings for both corporate bonds and structured finance products are significantly more favorable to...

This paper addresses regulatory concerns that large shareholders of credit rating agencies may influence the rating process. Unlike S&P which is a privately held division of McGraw Hill, Moody's is a public company listed on the NYSE. Over the period 2001 to 2010, Moody's had two shareholders,...