Mandatory financial information disclosure and credit ratings
利用德国大规模准自然实验，发现强制财务信息披露后信用评级下调增加，这源于分析师对声誉担忧而调整评估权重，而非公司基本面变化。
When firms are forced to publicly disclose financial information, credit rating agencies are generally expected to improve their risk assessments. Theory predicts such an information quality effect but also suggests an adverse reputational concerns effect since credit analysts may become increasingly concerned about alleged rating failures. We empirically examine these predictions using a large-scale quasi-natural experiment in Germany, where a new compliance regime required firms to disclose annual financial statements publicly. Consistent with the reputational concerns hypothesis, we find an average increase in credit rating downgrades that is entirely driven by changes in the discretionary assessments of credit analysts rather than changes in firm fundamentals. Following public disclosure regulations, analysts tend to give positive private information less weight in their risk assessments while assigning greater weight to negative public information. A final set of results indicates that professional credit providers recognize that the resulting downgrades are not warranted.