Why Credit Rating Agencies Exist

Robert J. Rhee

Economic Notes, 2015, vol. 44, issue 2, 161-176

Abstract: type="main" xml:lang="en">

Although credit rating agencies exist and are important to the capital markets, there remains a question of why they should exist. Two standard theories are that rating agencies correct a problem of information asymmetry and that they de facto regulate investments. These theories do not fully answer the question. This paper suggests an alternative explanation. While rating agencies produce little new information, they sort information available in the credit market. This sorting function is needed due to the large volume of information in the credit market. Sorting facilitates better credit analysis and investment selection, but bond investors or a cooperative of them cannot easily replicate this function. Outside of their information intermediary and regulatory roles, rating agencies serve a useful market purpose even if credit ratings inherently provide little new information. This alternative explanation has policy implications for the regulation of the industry.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/ (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:ecnote:v:44:y:2015:i:2:p:161-176

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0391-5026

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economic Notes from Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().