IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbfina/v32y2008i11p2412-2422.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rating agencies and the role of rating publication rights

Author

Listed:
  • Mählmann, Thomas

Abstract

While credit rating agencies disclose all public ratings as a matter of policy, a firm can choose whether to make a so called private rating public or to keep it confidential. This paper analyzes the economic role of such rating publication rights. In particular, the paper tries to answer the following two questions: (1) If firms have scope to disclose agency ratings at their own discretion, can they use this discretion strategically and conceal low-quality ratings?, and (2), if this is the case, what are the economic implications for rated firms, unrated firms and the rating agency, resulting from strategically motivated selective rating disclosures? Using a theoretical model, it is shown that an equilibrium with partial nondisclosure of low-quality ratings can emerge whenever investors cannot be sure whether rating nondisclosure is due to the firm being not rated, or due to the rating's adverse content. Moreover, since from an investors' perspective, strategically acting rated firms and unrated firms are pooled, unrated firms' debt is always under-valued (compared to a situation in which investors know that the firm is not rated), and the debt of firms concealing their rating is always over-valued.

Suggested Citation

  • Mählmann, Thomas, 2008. "Rating agencies and the role of rating publication rights," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(11), pages 2412-2422, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:32:y:2008:i:11:p:2412-2422
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378-4266(08)00051-4
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Grossman, Sanford J, 1981. "The Informational Role of Warranties and Private Disclosure about Product Quality," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(3), pages 461-483, December.
    2. Jung, Wo & Kwon, Yk, 1988. "Disclosure When The Market Is Unsure Of Information Endowment Of Managers," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 146-153.
    3. Simon H. Kwan & Willard T. Carleton, 2010. "Financial Contracting and the Choice between Private Placement and Publicly Offered Bonds," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(5), pages 907-929, August.
    4. Daniel M. Covitz & Paul Harrison, 2003. "Testing conflicts of interest at bond rating agencies with market anticipation: evidence that reputation incentives dominate," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2003-68, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    5. Arnoud W. A. Boot & Todd T. Milbourn & Anjolein Schmeits, 2006. "Credit Ratings as Coordination Mechanisms," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(1), pages 81-118.
    6. Greg Johnson, 2000. "Yankee Bonds And Cross‐Border Private Placements: An Update," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 13(3), pages 80-91, September.
    7. Bhattacharya Sudipto & Chiesa Gabriella, 1995. "Proprietary Information, Financial Intermediation, and Research Incentives," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 4(4), pages 328-357, October.
    8. Krahnen, Jan Pieter & Weber, Martin, 2001. "Generally accepted rating principles: A primer," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 3-23, January.
    9. Paul R. Milgrom, 1981. "Good News and Bad News: Representation Theorems and Applications," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 12(2), pages 380-391, Autumn.
    10. Dye, Ra, 1985. "Disclosure Of Nonproprietary Information," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(1), pages 123-145.
    11. Ram T. S. Ramakrishnan & Anjan V. Thakor, 1984. "Information Reliability and a Theory of Financial Intermediation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 51(3), pages 415-432.
    12. Abaffy, J. & Bertocchi, M. & Dupacova, J. & Moriggia, V. & Consigli, G., 2007. "Pricing nondiversifiable credit risk in the corporate Eurobond market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(8), pages 2233-2263, August.
    13. George A. Akerlof, 1970. "The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(3), pages 488-500.
    14. Cantor, Richard & Packer, Frank, 1997. "Differences of opinion and selection bias in the credit rating industry," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(10), pages 1395-1417, October.
    15. Yosha Oved, 1995. "Information Disclosure Costs and the Choice of Financing Source," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 3-20, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Matthias Efing, 2012. "Bank Capital Regulation with an Opportunistic Rating Agency," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 12-19, Swiss Finance Institute.
    2. Imad A Moosa, 2017. "The regulation of credit rating agencies: A realistic view," Journal of Banking Regulation, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 18(2), pages 180-200, April.
    3. Alsakka, Rasha & ap Gwilym, Owain, 2010. "Leads and lags in sovereign credit ratings," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(11), pages 2614-2626, November.

    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. Jeremy Bertomeu & Davide Cianciaruso, 2018. "Verifiable disclosure," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 65(4), pages 1011-1044, June.
    2. Doherty, Neil A. & Kartasheva, Anastasia V. & Phillips, Richard D., 2012. "Information effect of entry into credit ratings market: The case of insurers' ratings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(2), pages 308-330.
    3. Thakor, Anjan V., 2015. "Strategic information disclosure when there is fundamental disagreement," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 131-153.
    4. Bruce Ian Carlin & Shaun William Davies & Andrew Miles Iannaccone, 2010. "Competing for Attention in Financial Markets," NBER Working Papers 16085, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Sung Gon Chung & Beng Wee Goh & Jeffrey Ng & Kevin Ow Yong, 2017. "Voluntary fair value disclosures beyond SFAS 157’s three-level estimates," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 430-468, March.
    6. Chen, Jean J. & Cheng, Xinsheng & Gong, Stephen X. & Tan, Youchao, 2014. "Do higher value firms voluntarily disclose more information? Evidence from China," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 18-32.
    7. Eti Einhorn & Amir Ziv, 2008. "Intertemporal Dynamics of Corporate Voluntary Disclosures," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(3), pages 567-589, June.
    8. Ginger Zhe Jin & Andrew Kato & John A. List, 2010. "That’S News To Me! Information Revelation In Professional Certification Markets," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(1), pages 104-122, January.
    9. Xu Jiang & Ying Xue, 2023. "Morale, performance and disclosure," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(1), pages 5-23, February.
    10. Gabriele Gratton & Richard Holden & Anton Kolotilin, 2015. "Timing Information Flows," Discussion Papers 2015-16, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.
    11. Ali, Ashiq & Klasa, Sandy & Yeung, Eric, 2014. "Industry concentration and corporate disclosure policy," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 240-264.
    12. Wong, Tsz-Ning & Yang, Lily Ling, 2021. "Dynamic expert incentives in teams," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 27-47.
    13. Gabriele Gratton & Richard Holden & Anton Kolotilin, 2018. "When to Drop a Bombshell," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(4), pages 2139-2172.
    14. Richard Frankel & Joshua Lee & Zawadi Lemayian, 2018. "Proprietary costs and sealing documents in patent litigation," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 452-486, June.
    15. Renato Camodeca & Alex Almici & Umberto Sagliaschi, 2018. "Sustainability Disclosure in Integrated Reporting: Does It Matter to Investors? A Cheap Talk Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-34, November.
    16. Bhattacharya, Sourav & Goltsman, Maria & Mukherjee, Arijit, 2018. "On the optimality of diverse expert panels in persuasion games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 345-363.
    17. Hagenbach, Jeanne & Koessler, Frédéric, 2022. "Selective memory of a psychological agent," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    18. Frenkel, Sivan & Guttman, Ilan & Kremer, Ilan, 2020. "The effect of exogenous information on voluntary disclosure and market quality," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(1), pages 176-192.
    19. Ackert, Lucy F. & Church, Bryan K. & Sankar, Mandira Roy, 2000. "Voluntary disclosure under imperfect competition: experimental evidence," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 81-105, January.
    20. Alfred Wagenhofer, 2000. "Disclosure of proprietary information in the course of an acquisition," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(1), pages 57-69.

    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:eee:jbfina:v:32:y:2008:i:11:p:2412-2422. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbf .

    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.