Standards Are Poor: On Competence and Professional Integrity at the Leading Rating Agency

Abstract
Competence behind sovereign ratings is crucial, given that the government bond market may be vulnerable to multiple equilibria and self-fulfilling prophecies. With this in mind, this paper reviews and scrutinises official Standard & Poor’s publications that address key issues surrounding the government bond market and the role of ratings.

It presents a lack of competence, revealed in an inadequate grasp of crucial concepts such as multiple equilibria and self-fulfilling prophecy, obliviousness to Standard and Poor’s own rating methodology, and a nonchalant treatment of facts that casts a poor light on the agency’s integrity.

[Full text of articles can be found in the Intereconomics Archive two years after the initial publication]

Intereconomics: Archive http://archive.intereconomics.eu/years/

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