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The Ownership of Ratings

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Author Info
Faure-Grimaud, Antoine
Peyrache, Eloïc
Quesada, Lucía

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Abstract

Standard & Poor's provides corporate governance ratings to firms who can, upon learning those, decide to reveal them or not to the market. This paper identifies the circumstances under which such a simple ownership contract over ratings can emerge as the optimal arrangement. Firms hiding their ratings can only be an equilibrium outcome if they are sufficiently uncertain of their quality at the time of hiring a certification intermediary and if the decision to get a rating is not observable. For some distribution functions of firms' qualities, a competitive market is a necessary condition for this result to obtain. Competition between rating intermediaries will unambiguously lead to less information being revealed in equilibrium.

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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 5432.

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Date of creation: Dec 2005
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5432

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Related research
Keywords: certification; corporate governance;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information
G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Ilya Segal, 1999. "Contracting With Externalities," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 114(2), pages 337-388, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Okuno-Fujiwara, Masahiro & Postlewaite, Andrew & Suzumura, Kotaro, 1990. "Strategic Information Revelation," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 57(1), pages 25-47, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Joseph Farrell, 1985. "Voluntary Disclosure: Robustness of the Unraveling Result, and Comments on Its Importance," Working papers 374, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
  4. Paul Milgrom & John Roberts, 1986. "Relying on the Information of Interested Parties," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 17(1), pages 18-32, Spring. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Pierpaolo Battigalli & Giovanni Maggi, 2004. "Costly Contracting in a Long-Term Relationship," Working Papers 04-33, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  6. Steven Shavell, 1994. "Acquisition and Disclosure of Information Prior to Sale," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 25(1), pages 20-36, Spring. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Paul Gompers & Joy Ishii & Andrew Metrick, 2003. "Corporate Governance And Equity Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 118(1), pages 107-155, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Alessandro Lizzeri, 1999. "Information Revelation and Certification Intermediaries," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 30(2), pages 214-231, Summer. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Grossman, Sanford J, 1981. "The Informational Role of Warranties and Private Disclosure about Product Quality," Journal of Law & Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(3), pages 461-83, December.
  10. Grossman, S J & Hart, O D, 1980. " Disclosure Laws and Takeover Bids," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 35(2), pages 323-34, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Ilya Segal & Michael D. Whinston, 2003. "Robust Predictions for Bilateral Contracting with Externalities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(3), pages 757-791, 05. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Paul R. Milgrom, 1981. "Good News and Bad News: Representation Theorems and Applications," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 12(2), pages 380-391, Autumn. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Rochet, Jean-Charles & Stole, Lars A, 2002. "Nonlinear Pricing with Random Participation," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 69(1), pages 277-311, January.
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Vasiliki Skreta & Laura Veldkamp, 2008. "Ratings Shopping and Asset Complexity: A Theory of Ratings Inflation," Working Papers 08-28, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Patrick Bolton & Xavier Freixas & Joel Shapiro, 2009. "The Credit Ratings Game," Economics Working Papers 1149, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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