Regulating rating agencies: A conservative behavioural change
研究欧洲信用评级行业监管改革是否提升了金融机构评级质量，发现改革导致评级行为更保守而非质量提升，表现为评级膨胀减少但不当降级和虚假警告增加。
We investigate whether the European regulatory reforms of the credit rating industry have been successful in improving the quality of financial institutions’ credit ratings. A shift to more conservative rating behaviour rather than rating quality improvement is identified, which is attributable to increased regulatory scrutiny. This change leads to a reduction in rating inflation and an increase in the number of unwarranted downgrades and false rating warnings in the post-regulatory period. A significant decrease (increase) in the informativeness of rating downgrades (upgrades) is evident. Our findings contrast with prior evidence for US corporates where reputational effects dominated.