TY - JOUR AU - Bongaerts, Dion AU - Cremers, K.J. Martijn AU - Goetzmann, William N TI - Tiebreaker: Certification and Multiple Credit Ratings JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 15331 PY - 2009 Y2 - September 2009 DO - 10.3386/w15331 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15331 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15331.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Dion Bongaerts Burgemeester Oudlaan 50 3062 PA Rotterdam Netherlands Tel: +31 10 4082520 E-Mail: dbongaerts@rsm.nl Martijn Cremers University of Notre Dame 264 Mendoza College of Business Notre Dame, IN 46556-5646 Tel: 574-6314476 E-Mail: mcremers@nd.edu William N. Goetzmann School of Management Yale University Box 208200 New Haven, CT 06520-8200 Tel: 203/432-5950 Fax: 203/432-3003 E-Mail: william.goetzmann@yale.edu AB - This paper explores the economic role credit rating agencies play in the corporate bond market. We consider three existing theories about multiple ratings: information production, rating shopping and regulatory certification. Using differences in rating composition, default prediction and credit spread changes, our evidence only supports regulatory certification. Marginal, additional credit ratings are more likely to occur because of, and seem to matter primarily for regulatory purposes, but do not seem to provide significant additional information related to credit quality. ER -