IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbfina/v36y2012i12p3239-3247.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A public good approach to credit ratings – From concept to reality

Author

Listed:
  • Duan, Jin-Chuan
  • Van Laere, Elisabeth

Abstract

From the onset of the 2008–2009 financial crisis to the subsequent European sovereign debt crisis, credit rating agencies have been assigned considerable blame. Reforming the credit rating industry has hence become an important policy issue. In addition to the regulatory efforts in the context of accepting the for-profit business model of ratings, there is a growing realization that credit ratings bear the characteristics of a public good. Financial market participants need reliable, transparent and independent assessment of credit risks. Credit ratings are therefore better viewed as an infrastructure matter. However, the proposed regulations seem to have missed this point. This paper introduces a new approach to credit ratings undertaken by the Risk Management Institute at the National University of Singapore that is predicated on the provision of credit ratings as a public good. With a public good alternative in place, the currently predominant for-profit business model may be counterbalanced.

Suggested Citation

  • Duan, Jin-Chuan & Van Laere, Elisabeth, 2012. "A public good approach to credit ratings – From concept to reality," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(12), pages 3239-3247.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:36:y:2012:i:12:p:3239-3247
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2012.03.012
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037842661200074X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2012.03.012?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Winnie P. H. Poon & Michael Firth, 2005. "Are Unsolicited Credit Ratings Lower? International Evidence From Bank Ratings," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(9-10), pages 1741-1771.
    2. H. Kent Baker & Sattar A. Mansi, 2002. "Assessing Credit Rating Agencies by Bond Issuers and Institutional Investors," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(9&10), pages 1367-1398.
    3. Duffie, Darrell & Saita, Leandro & Wang, Ke, 2007. "Multi-period corporate default prediction with stochastic covariates," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 635-665, March.
    4. Pu Liu & Fazal J. Seyyed & Stanley D. Smith, 1999. "The Independent Impact of Credit Rating Changes - The Case of Moody's Rating Refinement on Yield Premiums," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(3-4), pages 337-363.
    5. AfDB AfDB, . "AfDB Group Annual Report in Brief 2009," Annual Report, African Development Bank, number 65 edited by Koua Louis Kouakou.
    6. Patrick Bolton & Xavier Freixas & Joel Shapiro, 2012. "The Credit Ratings Game," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(1), pages 85-112, February.
    7. Michael Faulkender & Mitchell A. Petersen, 2006. "Does the Source of Capital Affect Capital Structure?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(1), pages 45-79.
    8. Richard Cantor & Frank Packer, 1994. "The credit rating industry," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 19(Sum), pages 1-26.
    9. Millon, Marcia H & Thakor, Anjan V, 1985. "Moral Hazard and Information Sharing: A Model of Financial Information Gathering Agencies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(5), pages 1403-1422, December.
    10. Winnie P. H. Poon & Michael Firth, 2005. "Are Unsolicited Credit Ratings Lower? International Evidence From Bank Ratings," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(9‐10), pages 1741-1771, November.
    11. André Güttler, 2005. "Using a Bootstrap Approach to Rate the Raters," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 19(3), pages 277-295, October.
    12. Ricardo J. Caballero & Arvind Krishnamurthy, 2009. "Global Imbalances and Financial Fragility," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 584-588, May.
    13. Mathis, Jérôme & McAndrews, James & Rochet, Jean-Charles, 2009. "Rating the raters: Are reputation concerns powerful enough to discipline rating agencies?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(5), pages 657-674, July.
    14. Arnoud W. A. Boot & Todd T. Milbourn & Anjolein Schmeits, 2006. "Credit Ratings as Coordination Mechanisms," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(1), pages 81-118.
    15. Becker, Bo & Milbourn, Todd, 2011. "How did increased competition affect credit ratings?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(3), pages 493-514, September.
    16. Altman, Edward I. & Bharath, Sreedhar T. & Saunders, Anthony, 2002. "Credit ratings and the BIS capital adequacy reform agenda," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 909-921, May.
    17. H. Kent Baker & Sattar A. Mansi, 2002. "Assessing Credit Rating Agencies by Bond Issuers and Institutional Investors," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(9‐10), pages 1367-1398.
    18. Bar-Isaac, Heski & Shapiro, Joel, 2013. "Ratings quality over the business cycle," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 62-78.
    19. AfDB AfDB, . "AfDB Group Annual Report 2009," Annual Report, African Development Bank, number 66 edited by Koua Louis Kouakou.
    20. Poon, Winnie P. H., 2003. "Are unsolicited credit ratings biased downward?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 593-614, April.
    21. Carey, Mark & Hrycay, Mark, 2001. "Parameterizing credit risk models with rating data," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 197-270, January.
    22. Daniel M. Covitz & Paul Harrison, 2003. "Testing conflicts of interest at bond rating agencies with market anticipation: evidence that reputation incentives dominate," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2003-68, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    23. Shin, Yoon S. & Moore, William T., 2003. "Explaining credit rating differences between Japanese and U.S. agencies," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 327-344.
    24. AfDB AfDB, . "AfDB Group Annual Report 2009 (Arabic)," Annual Report, African Development Bank, number 68 edited by Koua Louis Kouakou.
    25. Darren J. Kisgen, 2006. "Credit Ratings and Capital Structure," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(3), pages 1035-1072, June.
    26. Richard Cantor & Frank Packer, 1995. "Sovereign credit ratings," Current Issues in Economics and Finance, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 1(Jun).
    27. Morkötter, Stefan & Westerfeld, Simone, 2009. "Rating model arbitrage in CDO markets: An empirical analysis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 18(1-2), pages 21-33, March.
    28. Lawrence J. White, 2010. "Markets: The Credit Rating Agencies," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(2), pages 211-226, Spring.
    29. Amadou N.R. Sy, 2009. "The Systemic Regulation of Credit Rating Agencies and Rated Markets," World Economics, World Economics, 1 Ivory Square, Plantation Wharf, London, United Kingdom, SW11 3UE, vol. 10(4), pages 69-108, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Guan, Yanling & Tang, Dragon Yongjun, 2018. "Employees' risk attitude and corporate risk taking: Evidence from pension asset allocations," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 261-274.
    2. Zhu, Xiaoquan & Peng, Hongfeng & Zhang, Zijian, 2020. "The nexus of judicial efficiency, social burden and default risk: Cross-country evidence," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    3. Tong, Eric, 2017. "US monetary policy and global financial stability," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(PA), pages 466-485.
    4. Sensoy, Ahmet & Eraslan, Veysel & Erturk, Mutahhar, 2016. "Do sovereign rating announcements have an impact on regional stock market co-movements? The case of Central and Eastern Europe," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 552-567.
    5. Jess N. Cornaggia & Kimberly J. Cornaggia & John E. Hund, 2017. "Credit Ratings Across Asset Classes: A Long-Term Perspective," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 21(2), pages 465-509.
    6. Kulwant Singh & Ishtiaq P. Mahmood & Siddharth Natarajan, 2017. "Capital Market Development and Firm Restructuring During an Economic Shock," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(3), pages 552-573, June.
    7. Mr. Jorge A Chan-Lau, 2017. "Lasso Regressions and Forecasting Models in Applied Stress Testing," IMF Working Papers 2017/108, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Bławat, Bogusław, 2012. "CRI RMI - Nowy model oceny ryzyka wystąpienia trudności finansowych firm [CRI RMI - New Approach to Default Probability Calculation]," MPRA Paper 49121, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jan 2013.
    9. Islam, Md Shahidul & Alam, Md Samsul & Bin Hasan, Shehub & Mollah, Sabur, 2022. "Firm-level political risk and distance-to-default," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    10. Polito, Vito & Wickens, Mike, 2014. "Modelling the U.S. sovereign credit rating," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 202-218.
    11. Kim, Myeong Hyeon & Kim, Baeho, 2014. "Systematic cyclicality of systemic bubbles: Evidence from the U.S. commercial banking system," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 281-297.
    12. RMI staff article, 2016. "NUS-RMI Credit Research Initiative Technical Report Version: 2016 Update 1," Global Credit Review (GCR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 6(01), pages 49-132.
    13. Panagiota Makrychoriti & Fotios Pasiouras & Menelaos Tasiou, 2022. "Financial stress and economic growth: The moderating role of trust," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(1), pages 48-74, February.
    14. Smyth, Stewart & Cole, Ian & Fields, Desiree, 2020. "From gatekeepers to gateway constructors: Credit rating agencies and the financialisation of housing associations," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    15. Tao Wang, 2016. "Time-Varying Rating Standards and the Distorted Incentives of Credit Rating Agencies," Global Credit Review (GCR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 6(01), pages 21-39.
    16. Elizabeth Gutierrez & Jake Krupa & Miguel Minutti-Meza & Maria Vulcheva, 2020. "Do going concern opinions provide incremental information to predict corporate defaults?," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 1344-1381, December.
    17. Lutfi Abdul Razak & Mansor H. Ibrahim & Adam Ng, 2020. "Which Sustainability Dimensions Affect Credit Risk? Evidence from Corporate and Country-Level Measures," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-22, December.
    18. Peter Christoffersen & Kris Jacobs & Xisong Jin & Hugues Langlois, 2018. "Dynamic Dependence and Diversification in Corporate Credit [Asymmetric correlations of equity portfolios]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 22(2), pages 521-560.
    19. Ali, Searat & Liu, Benjamin & Su, Jen Je, 2018. "Does corporate governance quality affect default risk? The role of growth opportunities and stock liquidity," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 422-448.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Valentina Bruno & Jess Cornaggia & Kimberly J. Cornaggia, 2016. "Does Regulatory Certification Affect the Information Content of Credit Ratings?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(6), pages 1578-1597, June.
    2. Tao Wang, 2016. "Time-Varying Rating Standards and the Distorted Incentives of Credit Rating Agencies," Global Credit Review (GCR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 6(01), pages 21-39.
    3. Huang, Yu-Li & Shen, Chung-Hua, 2021. "From revenue to safety: Rating agencies have changed their concerns after the crisis," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    4. Xia, Han, 2014. "Can investor-paid credit rating agencies improve the information quality of issuer-paid rating agencies?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(2), pages 450-468.
    5. Thomas Mählmann, 2009. "Multiple Credit Ratings, Cost of Debt and Self‐Selection," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(9‐10), pages 1228-1251, November.
    6. Becker, Bo & Milbourn, Todd, 2011. "How did increased competition affect credit ratings?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(3), pages 493-514, September.
    7. Berwart, Erik & Guidolin, Massimo & Milidonis, Andreas, 2019. "An empirical analysis of changes in the relative timeliness of issuer-paid vs. investor-paid ratings," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 88-118.
    8. Chen, Zhongfei & Matousek, Roman & Stewart, Chris & Webb, Rob, 2019. "Do rating agencies exhibit herding behaviour? Evidence from sovereign ratings," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 57-70.
    9. Thomas Mählmann, 2009. "Multiple Credit Ratings, Cost of Debt and Self-Selection," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(9-10), pages 1228-1251.
    10. Luitel, Prabesh & Vanpée, Rosanne & De Moor, Lieven, 2016. "Pernicious effects: How the credit rating agencies disadvantage emerging markets," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 286-298.
    11. Bernal, Oscar & Girard, Alexandre & Gnabo, Jean-Yves, 2016. "The importance of conflicts of interest in attributing sovereign credit ratings," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 48-66.
    12. Dion Bongaerts & K. J. Martijn Cremers & William N. Goetzmann, 2012. "Tiebreaker: Certification and Multiple Credit Ratings," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(1), pages 113-152, February.
    13. Harald Hau & Sam Langfield & David Marques-Ibanez, 2013. "Bank ratings: what determines their quality? [Bank risk during the financial crisis: do business models matter?]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 28(74), pages 289-333.
    14. Mathias Kronlund, 2020. "Do Bond Issuers Shop for Favorable Credit Ratings?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(12), pages 5944-5968, December.
    15. Shoaib Ali & Attiya Yasmin Javid, 2015. "Relationship between Credit Rating, Capital Structure and Earning Management Behaviour: Evidence from Pakistani Listed Firms," PIDE-Working Papers 2015:121, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
    16. Zhao, Sheng & Moreira, Fernando & Wang, Tong, 2021. "Is solicitation status related to rating conservatism and rating quality?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    17. Mariano, Beatriz, 2012. "Market power and reputational concerns in the ratings industry," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 1616-1626.
    18. Deb, Pragyan & Manning, Mark & Murphy, Gareth & Penalver, Adrian & Toth, Aron, 2011. "Financial Stability Paper No 9: Whither the Credit Ratings Industry?," Bank of England Financial Stability Papers 9, Bank of England.
    19. Singh, Amanjot & Singh, Harminder, 2022. "Insiders' stock pledging disclosures and credit ratings: Evidence from India," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    20. Park, Gitae & Lee, Ho-Young, 2018. "Opportunistic behaviors of credit rating agencies and bond issuers," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 39-59.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Rating agencies; Financial regulation; Rating transparency; Probability of default; Forward intensity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:36:y:2012:i:12:p:3239-3247. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbf .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.