Perspectives on Credit Ratings: A Response to Reviews on “Rating Politics”

I would like to thank Matthias Thiemann and Yuri Biondi for organizing this symposium on Rating Politics and Jacqueline Best, Quentin Bruneau and Alexandra Ouroussoff for their generous reading and inspiring comments. In my response to them, I elaborate on the strengths and weaknesses of the “financial infrastructures” approach to credit ratings. I argue that this approach allows for better understanding the dependence of both states and markets on credit ratings and the counter-intuitive incentive structure that shapes rating agencies’ behavior. At the same time, this approach yields a structuralist argument that has limitations when exploring the role of ideational factors in credit rating decisions.