IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aerins/v6y2024i1p55-72.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Irrelevance of Fee Structures for Certification

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Pollrich
  • Roland Strausz

Abstract

In models of certification, possible restrictions on the nature of the fee structures are commonly analyzed. We show that they are irrelevant for the certifier's ability to maximize profits and trade efficiency. Our results establish that certification schemes involve two substitutable dimensions—the fee structure and the disclosure rule. In the context of a canonical unit good certification setup, these dimensions act as perfect substitutes for achieving trade efficiency and (monotone) distributions of rents; adjustments in the disclosure dimension can fully mitigate restrictions in the fee dimension, but these changes do affect market transparency.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Pollrich & Roland Strausz, 2024. "The Irrelevance of Fee Structures for Certification," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 55-72, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aerins:v:6:y:2024:i:1:p:55-72
    DOI: 10.1257/aeri.20220698
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aeri.20220698
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aeri.20220698.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/aeri.20220698?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Ozerturk, Saltuk, 2014. "Upfront versus rating contingent fees: Implications for rating quality," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 91-103.
    3. Navin Kartik & Weijie Zhong, 2023. "Lemonade from Lemons: Information Design and Adverse Selection," Papers 2305.02994, arXiv.org.
    4. Skreta, Vasiliki & Veldkamp, Laura, 2009. "Ratings shopping and asset complexity: A theory of ratings inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(5), pages 678-695, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Matthieu Bouvard & Raphaël Levy, 2018. "Two-Sided Reputation in Certification Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(10), pages 4755-4774, October.
    2. Kittiphod Charoontham & Thunyarat Amornpetchkul, 2023. "Compensation reform analysis on inflated credit rating attenuation," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 50(3), pages 627-645, September.
    3. Kempf, Elisabeth, 2020. "The job rating game: Revolving doors and analyst incentives," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(1), pages 41-67.
    4. Harold Cole & Thomas F. Cooley, 2013. "Rating Agencies," Working Papers 2013-31, Economic Research Institute, Bank of Korea.
    5. Efing, Matthias & Hau, Harald, 2015. "Structured debt ratings: Evidence on conflicts of interest," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 46-60.
    6. Anil K. Kashyap & Natalia Kovrijnykh, 2016. "Who Should Pay for Credit Ratings and How?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(2), pages 420-456.
    7. Marta Allegra Ronchetti, 2018. "What if I knew you did it? An analysis of preliminary ratings’ disclosure under competition," Discussion Papers 2018/09, University of Nottingham, Centre for Finance, Credit and Macroeconomics (CFCM).
    8. Stolper, Anno, 2009. "Regulation of credit rating agencies," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(7), pages 1266-1273, July.
    9. Kempf, Elisabeth, 2017. "The Job Rating Game: The Effects of Revolving Doors on Analyst Incentives," Working Papers 258, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    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. Andreas Freytag & Martin Zenker, 2012. "The Credit Rating Market - Options for Appropriate Regulation," Global Financial Markets Working Paper Series 2012-39, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    12. Braun, Tobias, 2011. "Wie interagieren Banken und Ratingagenturen? Eine ökonomische Analyse des Bewertungsmarktes für strukturierte Finanzprodukte," Discussion Papers 2011-17, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Chair of Economic Ethics.
    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. Xiaoyang Zhuo & Guangli Xu & Yongjin Wang, 2017. "The Issuer-pays Business Model and Competitive Rating Market: Rating Network Structure," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 216-241, August.
    15. Gwion Williams & Rasha Alsakka & Owain ap Gwilym, 2013. "The Impact of Sovereign Credit Signals on Bank Share Prices during the European Sovereign Debt Crisis," Working Papers 13007, Bangor Business School, Prifysgol Bangor University (Cymru / Wales).
    16. Cornaggia, Jess & Cornaggia, Kimberly J. & Xia, Han, 2016. "Revolving doors on Wall Street," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(2), pages 400-419.
    17. Sean Flynn & Andra Ghent, 2018. "Competition and Credit Ratings After the Fall," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(4), pages 1672-1692, April.
    18. Camanho-Da-Costa-Neto, Nelson & Deb, Pragyan & Liu, Zijun, 2010. "Credit rating and competition," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119087, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    19. Jeon, Doh-Shin & Lovo, Stefano, 2013. "Credit rating industry: A helicopter tour of stylized facts and recent theories," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 643-651.
    20. Vu, Huong & Alsakka, Rasha & ap Gwilym, Owain, 2022. "Does competition improve sovereign credit rating quality?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    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:aea:aerins:v:6:y:2024:i:1:p:55-72. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    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.