IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rripxx/v22y2015i4p813-837.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Credit Rating Agencies and the IPE: Not as influential as thought?

Author

Listed:
  • Dimitrios Soudis

Abstract

Do Credit Rating Agencies (CRAs) affect national policy? This study critically examines assertions of a possible convergence to neo-liberal standards induced by sovereign bond ratings. By arguing that the role of the agencies in the global political economy has been exaggerated, the study finds that CRAs do not have a direct causal effect on domestic economic reforms. Employing a sample that covers the great majority of rated countries, it is shown that there is a robust trend towards deregulation and reform in accordance with neo-liberal standards. Nevertheless, sovereign bond ratings are not directly related to this process. Lower rated countries, or those more frequently downgraded, do not differ significantly from the highly rated countries in their pattern of policy reform. This result holds for policy domains such as regulation of credit, labour and business, inflation levels, legal structure and security of property rights, and the size of the public sector. It is concluded that the role of the CRAs as potential instigators of domestic reform is limited.

Suggested Citation

  • Dimitrios Soudis, 2015. "Credit Rating Agencies and the IPE: Not as influential as thought?," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(4), pages 813-837, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rripxx:v:22:y:2015:i:4:p:813-837
    DOI: 10.1080/09692290.2014.957234
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09692290.2014.957234
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09692290.2014.957234?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
    ---><---

    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. Mr. John Kiff & Sylwia Nowak & Miss Liliana B Schumacher, 2012. "Are Rating Agencies Powerful? An Investigation Into the Impact and Accuracy of Sovereign Ratings," IMF Working Papers 2012/023, International Monetary Fund.
    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. Alicja Malewska, 2021. "Failed Attempt to Break Up the Oligopoly in Sovereign Credit Rating Market after Financial Crises," Contemporary Economics, University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw., vol. 15(2), April.

    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. Louis RAFFESTIN, 2016. "Do bond credit ratings lead to excess comovement," LEO Working Papers / DR LEO 2481, Orleans Economics Laboratory / Laboratoire d'Economie d'Orleans (LEO), University of Orleans.
    2. Shaen Corbet, 2014. "The Contagion Effects of Sovereign Downgrades: Evidence from the European Financial Crisis," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 4(1), pages 83-92.
    3. Chiwitt, Ulrich, 2014. "Ratingagenturen - Fluch oder Segen? Eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme," Arbeitspapiere der FOM 48, FOM Hochschule für Oekonomie & Management.
    4. Binici, Mahir & Hutchison, Michael, 2018. "Do credit rating agencies provide valuable information in market evaluation of sovereign default Risk?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 58-75.
    5. Körner, Finn Marten & Trautwein, Hans-Michael, 2015. "Sovereign credit ratings and the transnationalization of finance: Evidence from a gravity model of portfolio investment," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 9, pages 1-54.
    6. Drago, Danilo & Gallo, Raffaele, 2016. "The impact and the spillover effect of a sovereign rating announcement on the euro area CDS market," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 264-286.
    7. El-Shagi, Makram & Schweinitz, Gregor von, 2018. "The joint dynamics of sovereign ratings and government bond yields," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 198-218.
    8. Hasan, Iftekhar & Kim, Suk-Joong & Politsidis, Panagiotis N. & Wu, Eliza, 2021. "Loan syndication under Basel II: How do firm credit ratings affect the cost of credit?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    9. Martijn Boermans & Bram van der Kroft, 2020. "Capital regulation induced reaching for systematic yield: Financial instability through fire sales," Working Papers 673, DNB.
    10. Hantzsche, Arno, 2022. "Fiscal uncertainty and sovereign credit risk," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    11. Jan Bruha & Moritz Karber & Beatrice Pierluigi & Ralph Setzer, 2017. "Understanding Rating Movements in Euro Area Countries," Working Papers 2017/06, Czech National Bank.
    12. Fathi Nakai & Tarek Chebbi, 2023. "The informational content of sovereign credit rating: another look," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 24(5), pages 353-373, September.
    13. Jory, Surendranath R. & Ngo, Thanh N. & Wang, Daphne, 2016. "Credit ratings and the premiums paid in mergers and acquisitions," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(PA), pages 93-104.
    14. Raffestin, Louis, 2017. "Do bond credit ratings lead to excess comovement?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 41-55.
    15. Manfred G?rtner & Bj?rn Griesbach, 2017. "Rating Agencies, Self-Fulfilling Prophecy and Multiple Equilibria? An Empirical Model of the European Sovereign Debt Crisis 2009-2011," Business and Economic Research, Macrothink Institute, vol. 7(1), pages 199-226, June.
    16. John Kiff, 2013. "Sovereign credit ratings: help or hindrance?," BIS Papers chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Sovereign risk: a world without risk-free assets?, volume 72, pages 34-38, Bank for International Settlements.
    17. Drago, Danilo & Gallo, Raffaele, 2017. "The impact of sovereign rating changes on the activity of European banks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 99-112.
    18. Drago, Danilo & Gallo, Raffaele, 2017. "The impact of sovereign rating changes on European syndicated loan spreads: The role of the rating-based regulation," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(PA), pages 213-231.
    19. Mahir Binici & Michael M Hutchison & Evan Weicheng Miao, 2018. "Are credit rating agencies discredited? Measuring market price effects from agency sovereign debt announcements," BIS Working Papers 704, Bank for International Settlements.
    20. Baker, Jessica & Carreras, Oriol & Kirby, Simon & Meaning, Jack & Piggott, Rebecca, 2016. "Modelling events: The short-term economic impact of leaving the EU," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 339-350.

    More about this item

    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:taf:rripxx:v:22:y:2015:i:4:p:813-837. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/rrip20 .

    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.