Regulation, Asset Complexity, and the Informativeness of Credit Ratings

Rainer Jankowitsch, Giorgio Ottonello and Marti G Subrahmanyam

The Review of Corporate Finance Studies, 2023, vol. 12, issue 3, 581-612

Abstract: We show that the effect of regulation on credit rating informativeness depends on asset complexity. Using the Dodd-Frank Act as a shock to the rating industry, we analyze the impact of rating changes on market prices, conditioning on various measures of complexity. Rating informativeness improves after Dodd-Frank, but not for assets with high complexity. Our results are robust to alternative measures of informativeness and provide strong evidence that the impact of regulation varies in the cross-section of securities. Our findings are consistent with models combining rating shopping with rating agencies that strategically decide on information acquisition and rating inflation. (JEL, G12, G32)Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

Date: 2023
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