First, while for a company or a bank the rating agencies’ analyses may include information in addition to what the central banks have, it is less clear as regards the countries, especially those in the euro area, whose macroeconomic and budget figures are well known.
The agencies – there are only three of them – have recently lost their credibility, contributing, with significant conflicts of interest, to the overvaluation of the creditworthiness of asset-back securities, particularly the sub-prime mortgages that caused the financial crisis. 5 However, the recent downward revisions of sovereign credit ratings raise many doubts.