Rating Agencies and Their Credit Ratings

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.