Indeed, we can pose a starker question. If the agencies – Standard & Poor's, Moody's and the rest – were to vanish, would it matter?
The conventional answer is that the regulatory system depends on them. Many investing institutions can only hold investment-grade securities, as defined by the agencies. The Basel II rules on bank capital rely on agency ratings for the risk-weighting of assets.
Whether that is sensible, given the mess the agencies have made of things lately, is debatable. But if it is, the next key question was raised some years ago by Richard Sylla, the US academic.
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