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Cheating Issues at S&P and Moody’s

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Behavioral Risk Management
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Abstract

In the early 2000s, there were three major rating firms in the United States: S&P, Moody’s, and Fitch. Rating agencies have reputational capital to protect: the opinions they express only have value if people believe those opinions are accurate indicators of creditworthiness. Therefore, in the lead-up to the global financial crisis, how in the world could two of these firms, S&P and Moody’s, have assigned triple-A ratings to many mortgage-related securities that plummeted in value when the housing bubble burst?1

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Notes

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© 2016 Hersh Shefrin

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Shefrin, H. (2016). Cheating Issues at S&P and Moody’s. In: Behavioral Risk Management. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137445629_9

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