Does observability of ratings shopping improve ratings quality?

Abstract

Ratings shopping is a well-documented cause for ratings inflation by credit rating agencies (CRAs). Its unobservability makes it difficult for market participants to undo it. In this paper, we exploit a unique regulation in India that requires CRAs to disclose ratings that were solicited but were eventually rejected by issuers. This regulation, which aims to enhance the transparency in the ratings process, allows us to empirically examine whether these disclosures influence ratings shopping and, consequently, ratings inflation. We find that the disclosure requirements result in an increase in the incidence of future downgrades and type 1 errors and a decrease in the occurrence of type 2 errors. These results are consistent with the view that the enhanced disclosure requirement did not reduce shopping and instead led to unintended consequences, such as an increase in implicit shopping, where issuers selectively engage lenient CRAs to obtain favorable ratings.