Professional paper
Regulatory power of credit rating agencies in the context o global financial system
Jakov Begić
orcid.org/0000-0003-0483-2384
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Credit rating agencies are privately owned enterprises which evaluate bonds and other securities issued by companies, governments, funds, local communities and other market participants, with the goal of determining their credit worthiness. Owing to the processes of globalization, market liberalization and the creation of a transnational financial system, credit rating agencies have clearly ranked themselves among the most important and powerful actors of the capitalist system, whose decisions and judgments affect all global market participants, private companies and firms as well as governments and local communities. This paper explores the regulatory power which these agencies exercise on national states, creating and determining adequate policies, that is, appropriate forms of governance for national states all around the world. We problematize this newly created framework of the international market according to which a positive rating from credit rating agencies is a condition for maintenance and development. The
necessity of governing in line with the standards set by credit rating agencies, which observe all market entities through the neoliberal prism, is a true indicator of the rating industry’s authority and power. With all this in mind, we question the perspective of the democratic process, the value of choosing between different political options
when there is only one valued path, one way to progress.
Keywords
financial system; global market; credit rating agencies; neoliberalism; bonds regulation
Hrčak ID:
105800
URI
Publication date:
1.5.2013.
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