Document Type

Conference Presentations

Publication Date

2009

Keywords

Reputational risk, rating agency industry, Subprime meltdown

Disciplines

Banking and Finance Law

Abstract

This essay is a lightly-edited version of a talk given at the University of Maryland School of Law and the Journal of Business & Technology Law's Conference on the Subprime Meltdown in October 2008. It briefly reviews the reputational risk literature and applies it to the rating agency industry. In particular, it looks at three of the inputs into reputation - trust, transparency, and leadership - and evaluates how rating agencies fared in the period leading up to the subprime meltdown. It concludes that rating agencies did poorly when it came to all three of these reputational inputs.

Comments

This publication predates the author's affiliation with Cornell Law School.

Download

Share

COinS