The Industry - A History of the Credit Rating Agencies is an account of American ingenuity, of an industry that originated in the United States and remains rooted there even as its branches spread across the globe. This is the story of enterprising men and women who met economic crises with optimism and determination. Today's agencies continue to adapt to a changing global economy.
An account of American ingenuity, of an industry that originated in the United States and remains rooted there even as its branches spread across the globe. This is the story of enterprising men and women who met economic crises with optimism and determination. Today’s agencies continue to adapt to a changing global economy.
Ratings, Rating Agencies and the Global Financial System brings together the research of economists at New York University and the University of Maryland, along with those from the private sector, government bodies, and other universities. The first section of the volume focuses on the historical origins of the credit rating business and its present day industrial organization structure. The second section presents several empirical studies crafted largely around individual firm-level or bank-level data. These studies examine (a) the relationship between ratings and the default and recovery experience of corporate borrowers, (b) the comparability of credit ratings made by domestic and foreign rating agencies, and (c) the usefulness of financial market indicators for rating banks, among other topics. In the third section, the record of sovereign credit ratings in predicting financial crises and the reaction of financial markets to changes in credit ratings is examined. The final section of the volume emphasizes policy issues now facing regulators and credit rating agencies.
øŠAline Darbellay analyzes the obvious system relevance of credit rating agencies in depth and assesses the possible options for regulatory responses to this systemic issue. Thereby, the book is based on a fruitful comparative legal approach and formul
The first consumer credit bureaus appeared in the 1870s and quickly amassed huge archives of deeply personal information. Today, the three leading credit bureaus are among the most powerful institutions in modern life—yet we know almost nothing about them. Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion are multi-billion-dollar corporations that track our movements, spending behavior, and financial status. This data is used to predict our riskiness as borrowers and to judge our trustworthiness and value in a broad array of contexts, from insurance and marketing to employment and housing. In Creditworthy, the first comprehensive history of this crucial American institution, Josh Lauer explores the evolution of credit reporting from its nineteenth-century origins to the rise of the modern consumer data industry. By revealing the sophistication of early credit reporting networks, Creditworthy highlights the leading role that commercial surveillance has played—ahead of state surveillance systems—in monitoring the economic lives of Americans. Lauer charts how credit reporting grew from an industry that relied on personal knowledge of consumers to one that employs sophisticated algorithms to determine a person's trustworthiness. Ultimately, Lauer argues that by converting individual reputations into brief written reports—and, later, credit ratings and credit scores—credit bureaus did something more profound: they invented the modern concept of financial identity. Creditworthy reminds us that creditworthiness is never just about economic "facts." It is fundamentally concerned with—and determines—our social standing as an honest, reliable, profit-generating person.
This book details the difference between the two rating industries, but this difference is converging all the time. The concept of investing in a more responsible and sustainable manner is drawing in some of the world’s leading investors and, with it, regulations and policies are developing at the highest levels. However, the market is not getting what it needs to fully submit to the concept of responsible investing. It has called for more to be done from those tasked with injecting information into their processes, and two industries in particular have been identified as being natural partners. It has been suggested that they are on a collision course to serve the mainstream investor, and in this book, that collision course is contextualised, explained, presented, and finally its outcome predicted.
This book aims to present a picture of one of the world’s leading credit rating agencies. Credited as being the first credit rating agency, Moody’s stands as the epitome of the rating sector and all that it effects. However, outside of internal and non-public histories compiled within the rating agency itself, the story of Moody’s has never been told, until now. However, this is not a historical book. Rather, this book paints a picture of Moody’s on a wider canvas that introduces the concept of rating to you, taking into account the origins of the sector, the competitive battles that formed the modern-day oligopoly, and the characters that have each taken their turn on sculpting the industry that, today, is critical to the modern economy. The book is a story of personable people who provided the market with what it needed, but it is more than that. It is a story of conflict, impact, strategy, and most of all the relationship between big business and modern society. Standing as the gatekeeper to the capital markets that form the core of modern society, Moody’s represents the very best of what the marketplace can produce, but also the very worst. This story takes in economic crises in the antebellum US, the Panics of the early 1900s, the Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression and, of course, the Global Financial Crisis. It does this because, at the heart of each one was a member of the rating industry or the reporting industry that preceded it. Associated with almost any financial scandal you may care to remember the credit rating agencies, in their often-uncomfortable role as gatekeepers, have their fingerprints on most financial scandals and calamities. This book tells the story of the industry’s founding member.
Credit rating agencies play a critical role in capital markets, guiding the asset allocation of institutional investors as private capital moves freely around the world in search of the best trade-off between risk and return. However, they have also been strongly criticised for failing to spot the Asian crisis in the early 1990s, the Enron, WorldCom and Parmalat collapses in the early 2000s and finally for their ratings of subprime-related structured finance instruments and their role in the current financial crisis. This book is a guide to ratings, the ratings industry and the mechanics and economics of obtaining a rating. It sheds light on the role that the agencies play in the international financial markets. It avoids the sensationalist approach often associated with studies of rating scandals and the financial crisis, and instead provides an objective and critical analysis of the business of ratings. The book will be of practical use to any individual who has to deal with ratings and the ratings industry in their day-to-day job. Reviews "Rating agencies fulfil an important role in the capital markets, but given their power, they are frequently the object of criticism. Some of it is justified but most of it portrays a lack of understanding of their business. In their book The Rating Agencies and their Credit Ratings, Herwig and Patricia Langohr provide an excellent economic background to the role of rating agencies and also a thorough understanding of their business and the problems they face. I recommend this book to all those who have an interest in this somewhat arcane but extremely important area." -Robin Monro-Davies, Former CEO, Fitch Ratings. "At a time of unprecedented public and political scrutiny of the effectiveness and indeed the basic business model of the Credit Rating industry, and heightened concerns regarding the transparency and accountability of the leading agencies, this book provides a commendably comprehensive overview, and should provide invaluable assistance in the ongoing debate." -Rupert Atkinson, Managing Director, Head of Credit Advisory Group, Morgan Stanley and member of the SIFMA Rating Agency Task Force "The Langohrs have provided useful information in a field where one frequently finds only opinions or misconceptions. They supply a firm base from which to understand changes now underway. A well-read copy of this monograph should be close to the desk of every investor, issuer and financial regulator, legislator or commentator." -John Grout, Policy and Technical Director, The Association of Corporate Treasurers
"This book aims to present a picture of one of the world's leading credit rating agencies. Credited as being the first credit rating agency, Moody's stands as the epitome of the rating sector and all that it effects. However, outside of internal and non-public histories compiled within the rating agency itself, the story of Moody's has never been told, until now. However, this is not a historical book. Rather, this book paints a picture of Moody's on a wider canvass that introduces the concept of rating to you, taking into account the origins of the sector, the competitive battles that formed the modern-day oligopoly, and the characters that have each taken their turn on sculpting the industry that, today, is critical to the modern economy. The book is a story of personable people who provided the market with what it needed, but it is more than that. It is a story of conflict, impact, strategy, and most of all the relationship between big business and modern society. Standing as the gatekeeper to the capital markets that form the core of modern society, Moody's represents the very best of what the marketplace can produce, but also the very worst. This story takes in economic crises in the antebellum United States, the Panics of the early 1900s, the Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression and, of course, the Global Financial Crisis. It does this because, at the heart of each one was a member of the rating industry or the reporting industry that preceded it. Associated with almost any financial scandal you may care to remember the credit rating agencies, in their often-uncomfortable role as gatekeepers, have their fingerprints on most financial scandals and calamities. This book tells the story of the industry's founding member"--
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the credit rating industry, while providing specific emphasis on competition and inherent conflicts of interest that exist within the industry. The first section of the paper defines credit ratings and describes key elements of the ratings process. This is followed by a discussion of the history of the credit rating industry, highlighted by the origins of the three major firms: Standard and Poor's, Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings. The creation of the Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization (NRSRO) designation is a significant event in the history of the credit markets and the topic is introduced as a separate section from the industry history. The Credit Rating Agency Reform Act of 2006 describes recent changes to the NRSRO designation status, and other regulatory changes to the industry. The current industry environment section speaks mainly about changes in industry since the 1970s that have created the modern credit rating system in place, as well as information related to the three prominent firms in the industry. The two possible substitutes to credit ratings, bond insurance and credit spreads, are discussed after the industry environment. This is followed by an analysis of the conflicts of interest that are inherent in the credit rating process and current business model, mainly the disconnect between investor and issuer demands. This is followed by a section describing the dual ratings norm. The final sections draws conclusions based on information presented in previous sections and examines the industry's future.
