[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bng/wpaper/12012.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Bank ratings-What determines their quality?

Author

Listed:
  • Harald Hau

    (University of Geneva, Swiss Finance Institute and CEPR)

  • Sam Langfield

    (European Systemic Risk Board Secretariat and UK Financial Services Authority)

  • David Marques-Ibanez

    (European Central Bank)

Abstract
This paper examines the quality of credit ratings assigned to banks in Europe and the United States by the three largest rating agencies over the past two decades. We interpret credit ratings as relative assessments of creditworthiness, and define a new ordinal metric of rating error based on banks’ expected default frequencies. Our results suggest that rating agencies assign more positive ratings to large banks and to those institutions more likely to provide the rating agency with additional securities rating business (as indicated by private structured credit origination activity). These competitive distortions are economically significant and help perpetuate the existence of ‘too-big-to-fail’ banks. We also show that, overall, differential risk weights recommended by the Basel accords for investment grade banks bear no significant relationship to empirical default probabilities.

Suggested Citation

  • Harald Hau & Sam Langfield & David Marques-Ibanez, 2012. "Bank ratings-What determines their quality?," Working Papers 12012, Bangor Business School, Prifysgol Bangor University (Cymru / Wales).
    • Handle: RePEc:bng:wpaper:12012
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bangor.ac.uk/business/research/documents/BBSWP12012.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jie He & Jun Qian & Philip E. Strahan, 2011. "Credit Ratings and the Evolution of the Mortgage-Backed Securities Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 131-135, May.
    2. Bertay, Ata Can & Demirgüç-Kunt, Asli & Huizinga, Harry, 2013. "Do we need big banks? Evidence on performance, strategy and market discipline," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 532-558.
    3. Berger, Allen N. & Bouwman, Christa H.S., 2013. "How does capital affect bank performance during financial crises?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(1), pages 146-176.
    4. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2009. "The Aftermath of Financial Crises," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 466-472, May.
    5. Manganelli, Simone & Altunbas, Yener & Marqués-Ibáñez, David, 2011. "Bank risk during the financial crisis: do business models matter?," Working Paper Series 1394, European Central Bank.
    6. Huizinga, H.P. & Laeven, L., 2009. "Accounting Discretion of Banks During a Financial Crisis," Other publications TiSEM b94d0405-1ced-4aa4-870b-2, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    7. Bar-Isaac, Heski & Shapiro, Joel, 2013. "Ratings quality over the business cycle," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 62-78.
    8. Rebel Cole & Lawrence White, 2012. "Déjà Vu All Over Again: The Causes of U.S. Commercial Bank Failures This Time Around," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 42(1), pages 5-29, October.
    9. 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.
    10. Patrick Bolton & Xavier Freixas & Joel Shapiro, 2012. "The Credit Ratings Game," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(1), pages 85-112, February.
    11. Mariathasan, Mike & Merrouche, Ouarda, 2014. "The manipulation of basel risk-weights," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 300-321.
    12. Heski Bar-Isaac & Joel Shapiro, 2011. "Credit Ratings Accuracy and Analyst Incentives," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 120-124, May.
    13. Berger, Allen N. & Bouwman, Christa H. S., 2011. "How Does Capital Affect Bank Performance during Financial Crises?," Working Papers 11-36, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.
    14. Jens Hilscher & Mungo Wilson, 2011. "Credit ratings and credit risk," Working Papers 31, Brandeis University, Department of Economics and International Business School.
    15. 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.).
    16. Merton, Robert C, 1974. "On the Pricing of Corporate Debt: The Risk Structure of Interest Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 29(2), pages 449-470, May.
    17. Wade Cook & Moshe Kress & Lawrence Seiford, 1986. "Information and preference in partial orders: A bimatrix representation," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 51(2), pages 197-207, June.
    18. Matthias Efing, 2012. "Bank Capital Regulation with an Opportunistic Rating Agency," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 12-19, Swiss Finance Institute.
    19. Campello, Murillo & Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R., 2010. "The real effects of financial constraints: Evidence from a financial crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(3), pages 470-487, September.
    20. Lorenzo Garlappi & Raman Uppal & Tan Wang, 2007. "Portfolio Selection with Parameter and Model Uncertainty: A Multi-Prior Approach," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(1), pages 41-81, January.
    21. 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.
    22. Nelson Camanho & Pragyan Deb & Zijun Liu, 2022. "Credit rating and competition," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(3), pages 2873-2897, July.
    23. Becker, Bo & Milbourn, Todd, 2011. "How did increased competition affect credit ratings?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(3), pages 493-514, September.
    24. Efraim Benmelech & Jennifer Dlugosz, 2010. "The Credit Rating Crisis," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2009, Volume 24, pages 161-207, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Beltratti, Andrea & Stulz, René M., 2012. "The credit crisis around the globe: Why did some banks perform better?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 1-17.
    26. Frank Packer & Nikola Tarashev, 2011. "Rating methodologies for banks," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, June.
    27. John M. Griffin & Dragon Yongjun Tang, 2011. "Did Credit Rating Agencies Make Unbiased Assumptions on CDOs?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 125-130, May.
    28. Lawrence J. White, 2010. "Markets: The Credit Rating Agencies," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(2), pages 211-226, Spring.
    29. Lily Fang & Ayako Yasuda, 2009. "The Effectiveness of Reputation as a Disciplinary Mechanism in Sell-Side Research," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(9), pages 3735-3777, September.
    30. Berger, Allen N. & Bouwman, Christa H. S., 2011. "How Does Capital Affect Bank Performance during Financial Crises?," Working Papers 11-22, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.
    31. Paolo Fulghieri & Günter Strobl & Han Xia, 2014. "The Economics of Solicited and Unsolicited Credit Ratings," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(2), pages 484-518.
    32. Crouhy, Michel & Galai, Dan & Mark, Robert, 2000. "A comparative analysis of current credit risk models," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(1-2), pages 59-117, January.
    33. Sreedhar T. Bharath & Tyler Shumway, 2008. "Forecasting Default with the Merton Distance to Default Model," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(3), pages 1339-1369, May.
    34. Andreas Bloechlinger & Markus Leippold, 2012. "Are Ratings the Worst Form of Credit Assessment Apart from All the Others?," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 12-09, Swiss Finance Institute.
    35. Donald P. Morgan, 2002. "Rating Banks: Risk and Uncertainty in an Opaque Industry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 874-888, September.
    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. Efing, Matthias & Hau, Harald, 2015. "Structured debt ratings: Evidence on conflicts of interest," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 46-60.
    2. Nelson Camanho & Pragyan Deb & Zijun Liu, 2022. "Credit rating and competition," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(3), pages 2873-2897, July.
    3. Cornaggia, Jess & Cornaggia, Kimberly J. & Xia, Han, 2016. "Revolving doors on Wall Street," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(2), pages 400-419.
    4. 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.
    5. Attig, Najah & Driss, Hamdi & El Ghoul, Sadok, 2021. "Credit ratings quality in uncertain times," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    6. Brendan Daley & Brett Green & Victoria Vanasco, 2020. "Securitization, Ratings, and Credit Supply," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(2), pages 1037-1082, April.
    7. Chen, Zhongfei & Matousek, Roman & Stewart, Chris & Webb, Rob, 2019. "Do rating agencies exhibit herding behaviour? Evidence from sovereign ratings," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 57-70.
    8. Bar-Isaac, Heski & Shapiro, Joel, 2013. "Ratings quality over the business cycle," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 62-78.
    9. Xia, Han, 2014. "Can investor-paid credit rating agencies improve the information quality of issuer-paid rating agencies?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(2), pages 450-468.
    10. Jess N. Cornaggia & Kimberly J. Cornaggia & John E. Hund, 2017. "Credit Ratings Across Asset Classes: A Long-Term Perspective," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 21(2), pages 465-509.
    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. Farkas, Miklós, 2021. "Competition, communication and rating bias," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 637-656.
    13. Wenming Xu & Yan Liu, 2021. "Does reputational capital affect credit rating agencies?: empirical evidence from a natural experiment in China," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 433-468, June.
    14. 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.
    15. Chen, Yongmin & Gu, Dingwei & Yao, Zhiyong, 2013. "Rating Inflation versus Deflation: On Procyclical Credit Ratings," MPRA Paper 51159, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Gerald J. Lobo & Luc Paugam & Hervé Stolowy & Pierre Astolfi, 2017. "The Effect of Business and Financial Market Cycles on Credit Ratings: Evidence from the Last Two Decades," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 53(1), pages 59-93, March.
    17. Valentina Bruno & Jess Cornaggia & Kimberly J. Cornaggia, 2016. "Does Regulatory Certification Affect the Information Content of Credit Ratings?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(6), pages 1578-1597, June.
    18. Michael R. King & Steven Ongena & Nikola Tarashev, 2020. "Bank Standalone Credit Ratings," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 16(4), pages 101-144, September.
    19. 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.
    20. Francesco Sangiorgi & Chester Spatt, 2017. "Opacity, Credit Rating Shopping, and Bias," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(12), pages 4016-4036, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Rating Agencies; Credit Ratings; Conflicts of Interest; Prudential Regulation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:bng:wpaper:12012. 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: Alan Thomas (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sabanuk.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.