Suchergebnisse

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 agency market more effectively. The market shall be coordinated through a central allocation office, which is acting as a mediator between both contractual parties. The paper develops a game theoretical approach that considers reputation as one of the most important aspects within the market. After analysing the status quo two policy options are discussed on a game theoretical basis. The main result is that the incorporation of a mediator, which awards the contracts based on a lottery drawing, would help to solve conflicts of interests. The incentive to inflate ratings decreases significantly. Moreover, rating shopping option becomes impossible. Two possible positive side effects for smaller CRAs and new incumbents are the increase of market share as well as reputation. Therefore, the market competition should be affected positively, too.

Introduction -- Functions and malfunctions of the rating industry -- Private credit risk -- Sovereign credit risk -- Regulatory capture -- Public credit rating agency: functions and structure -- Conclusion

This paper describes and evaluates "shadow" sovereign credit ratings, which represent the credit ratings of countries that are not rated by credit rating agencies. Credit ratings represent the creditworthiness of companies or governments. They are important in attracting foreign capital. Countries without credit ratings can face greater difficulties than countries with low credit ratings, for example paying a higher price for capital. This paper has two objectives. The primary objective of this paper was to estimate a rating prediction model to the assess credit ratings of countries that are not yet rated. Large numbers of potential determinants were tested, and nine variables were selected that play a key role in assessing credit ratings. According to the chosen determinants, a highly precise model was calculated (80% of the estimated ratings were identical to the corresponding actual ratings or only one notch different). The purpose of this analysis was to estimate credit ratings for a sample of 31 unrated countries. The results are statistically significant and explained in detail. The second objective of this paper was to demonstrate that countries that are not ranked would not necessarily receive the lowest rating, and the results supported that hypothesis.

"Since June 2007, the creditworthiness of structured finance products has deteriorated rapidly. The number of downgrades in November 2007 alone exceeded 2,000 and many downgrades were severe, with 500 tranches downgraded more than 10 notches. Massive downgrades continued in 2008. More than 11,000 of the downgrades affected securities that were rated AAA. This paper studies the credit rating crisis of 2007-2008 and in particular describes the collapse of the credit ratings of ABS CDOs. Using data on ABS CDOs we provide suggestive evidence that ratings shopping may have played a role in the current crisis. We find that tranches rated solely by one agency, and by S&P in particular, were more likely to be downgraded by January 2008. Further, tranches rated solely by one agency are more likely to suffer more severe downgrades"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site