And these incentives are in turn shaped by the rules of the game, which include regulations, accounting standards, and a range of performance-measurement, governance, and compensation structures.
At an abstract level, one can think of the agents making credit decisions and the rulemakers who shape their incentives as involved in an ongoing evolutionary process, in which each adapts over time in response to changing conditions. At any point, the agents try to maximize their own compensation, given the rules of the game.