WORKING PAPER SERIES NO 1484 / OCTOBER 2012 BANK RATINGS WHAT DETERMINES THEIR QUALITY? Harald Hau, Sam Langfield and David Marques-Ibanez ,QDOO(&% SXEOLFDWLRQV IHDWXUHDPRWLI WDNHQIURP WKH»EDQNQRWH NOTE: This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the European Central Bank (ECB). The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the ECB. Note This is a preliminary version of a paper prepared for the 56th panel meeting of Economic Policy, October 2012. Acknowledgements Opinions expressed herein are those of the authors only. They do not necessarily reflect the views of, or involve any responsibility for, the institutions to which they are affiliated. Any errors are the fault of the authors. We are indebted to Thomas Drechsel and Matthias Efing for excellent research assistance and to Johannes Micheler and Antonia Simeonova for providing data and code. Allen Berger, Oliver Burkart, Jean-Pierre Danthine, Matthias Efing, Artus Galiay, Zijun Liu, Simone Manganelli, Jose Geli Manzano, John Muellbauer, Steven Ongena, Alex Popov, Ana Rita Ribeiro Mateus, Andrei Sarychev, Frank Smets, Balázs Zsámboki and four anonymous referees provided helpful comments. The Managing Editor in charge of this paper is Philip Lane. Harald Hau at University of Geneva, Rue du Général- Dufour 24, 1211 Genève 4, Schweiz, Swiss Finance Institute and CEPR; e-mail:
[email protected] Sam Langfield at European Systemic Risk Board Secretariat and UK Financial Services Authority; e-mail:
[email protected] David Marques-Ibanez at European Central Bank, Kaiserstrasse 29, D-60311 Frankfurt am Main, Germany; e-mail:
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