Restoring the Role of Credit Rating Agencies as Gatekeepers

Credit rating agencies(CRAs) are accused of failing to provide accurate and fair credit ratings and hence being responsible for the crisis. This paper tries to add on to the literature on credit rating reform through examining the CRAs in a model where rating quality is unobservable. We show that unobservability of rating effort results in the sub-optimal level of quality. Then the paper extends the model to incorporate ancillary services, competition and reputation. We show that ancillary services worsen the conflict of interests of the CRAs and that competition and reputation may not be strong enough to discipline the CRAs. Hence regulatory oversight and imposition of liability may be necessary in order to increase the accuracy of ratings