Implications of Reputation Economics on Regulatory Reform of the Credit Rating Industry

Credit rating agencies have for years averred that they would never intentionally issue or maintain inaccurate ratings due to the damage their reputation, and therefore their business, would suffer as a result. The reputation of credit rating agencies perhaps never suffered more than when thousands of structured debt securities proved to hold inflated ratings during the run-up to the credit crisis. Yet credit rating agencies remain as ingrained as ever in the global financial system. What is more, congressional testimony shows that credit rating agencies had the ability to rate more accurately, but intentionally failed to do so. Therefore, credit rating agencies inwardly believed that their reputations with investors were not nearly as valuable as they outwardly claimed. Their ability to thrive while their reputations languish proves that they were right. Reputation mechanisms theoretically operate in the credit rating industry to solve problems of information asymmetry. Whereas investors cannot trust issuers to truthfully convey their own credit risk, a credit rating agency must guard its reputation and the related promise of future business due to the comparatively small fee it earns for each opinion it provides. The actual credit rating industry, however, differs from the model in several ways that have the potential to undermine reputational incentives. Regulations tied to credit ratings give Nationally Recognized Statistically Rating Organizations (NRSROs) the power to sell cost-reducing and demand-increasing regulatory compliance to issuers. Further, regulatory and market factors may increase the short-term profitability of falsifying ratings or diminish the long-term profitability of reputation-building. The current statutory and regulatory regime governing credit rating agencies ignores these barriers to accuracy. The Credit Rating Agency Reform Act of 2006 (CRARA) and the SEC regulations thereunder instead assume that making the credit rating industry more transparent, more competitive, and less conflicted will restore the quality of credit ratings. By providing investors with more information and more choices, the CRARA largely aims to enable investors to accurately assess agencies\u27 reputations and hold them accountable for issuing or maintaining inaccurate ratings. Despite the manifest failings of credit rating agencies since 2006 and the unaddressed theoretical barriers to an effective reputation mechanism in the credit rating industry, the Treasury Department recently endorsed continuing to regulate credit rating agencies under the current system. In place of these measures, successful reform efforts must either restore the role of reputation in the credit rating industry or obviate the need for it. Proposals in the latter category face difficulties that make them either impractical or ineffective. Dismantling the NRSRO superstructure, meanwhile, would remove the principal barrier to reputation economics. To fill the void left by ending ratings-based regulation, regulated investors would be given primary responsibility to certify risk, but would also be allowed to rely on credit spreads as a safe harbor. Such a solution would both produce accurate ratings and protect investors without overburdening regulated institutions

A study of some farm operations and herd management practices among milking shorthorn breeders in Kansas

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1955 B65Master of Scienc

Collectively Fashioned: Women, Fancy Dress, and Networks of Representation in British Visual Culture, 1750-1900

This thesis furthers the claim that dress was a vital tool for the expression of identity, particularly for women, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by considering how women utilized images of dress as part of a networked process of representation. In doing so, it seeks to revive the important role of women in the creation of visual representations of dress, both as subjects and patrons. This thesis demonstrates that, as in the creation of physical costume, costume that is represented in art and visual culture was the result of the agency of a network of individuals, whose relationships were bound through kinship and social networks. Each of the three case studies explores a different visual representation of dress, including painted portraiture, fashion plates and photographs from an ephemeral costume ball. Although each of these chapters engages with a different type of dress and medium of art, they are all united by their focus on historic and exotic impulses in costume: real, imagined and fashionable. Through each of these examples, this thesis charts how fashions migrate across time and space in visual representations of dress, and in the process contribute to the empowering act of representing the collective ideals of women’s networks at regional, national, and international levels. The aims of this thesis are twofold: to draw attention to the importance of visual images of dress to the study of women’s history on account of the messages of representation embedded within them; and secondly to demonstrate the degree to which the creation of such images was a networked process in which women exercised a level of agency that is often not attributed to them in the literature

An Absurd Scene from Vladimir Dolokhov and Vadim Gurangov\u27s The Art of Soaring, a Russian Best-Seller

In their 1998 Russian Best-Selling Book, The Art of Soaring (English Title), Russian Authors Vladimir Dolokhov and Vadim Gurangov outline a practical philosophy that the Russian people have developed to help cope with the historically harsh natural and political climates. This scene is from an explanation of one of the items in the Eastern Slavic toolkit which involves equal parts gratitude and absurdity. Instead of being angry or upset at Ivan, a thug encountered in the street, the authors urge that we can be thankful for the lessons that Ivan can teach us (that the streets are dangerous and if we are not careful someone might mug us leaving us in turn destitute and desperate). To solidify our thanksgiving, we can conjure up absurd scenes and offer them as imaginary gifts to the things that would otherwise be our adversaries. This allows us to leave the situation with a lesson learned and a smile on our face. While apparently stemming from a different philosophical taxonomy, this is closely related to the Stoic teaching that even if we cannot change exterior circumstances we can always change how we think about those circumstances. This absurd scene comes from the chapter Giving Thanks in the passage that says, Thank you, Yanya [a term of endearment for someone named Ivan], for warning me that what I am imagining could actually happen to me: you could beat me up and take all my money. Then I might become like you, or end up begging for money at bus stops, since my wife would never let me come home without any money. For warning me of this, I thank you and offer you a crane wearing rubber boots, which is painting a fence green with a vacuum cleaner.https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/libcom_stuart_fall2017/1033/thumbnail.jp

Studies on the stabilization and purification of nitrite reductase from Neurospora crassa

Due to the character of the original source materials and the nature of batch digitization, quality control issues may be present in this document. Please report any quality issues you encounter to [email protected], referencing the URI of the item.Bibliography: leaves 42-46.Not availabl

ZINC-METALLOTHIONEIN SYNTHESIS IN CULTURED NORMAL HUMAN SKIN FIBROBLASTS AND IN MENKES\u27 DISEASE AND ACRODERMATITIS ENTEROPATHICA

Abstract not availabl

Surface wind fields in the vicinity of meso-convective storms as derived from radar observations : non-tornadic storms

Bound typescript (Photocopy).The objective of this investigation was to test the hypothesis that there is a determinable relationship between the true surface wind field and radar derived wind data. Data used were composed of National Severe Storms Laboratory single-Doppler radar data, surface automated mesonet (SAM) data, and tall-tower data from the Next Generation Weather Radar (NEXRAD) Interim Operational Test Facility (IOTF) Spring 1983 Demonstration. Analyses used data from storms that occurred in the data collection area on 22 April, 27 June, and 28 June 1983. The radial wind data provided by the single-Doppler radar were complemented by data derived from application of the NEXRAD Transverse Wind algorithm. This pattern translation algorithm derives a wind field through a statistical correlation technique using temporally separated scans of radar reflectivity. Data derived through the NEXRAD Transverse Wind algorithm were examined to assess the algorithm's general usability and to select operational parameters. The relationship of the derived data to other sources of surface wind data was examined in some detail. An important result of this investigation is the validation of the use of the Transverse Wind algorithm with data obtained at low elevation angles and short time spans between reflectivity scans. The use of maximum correlation coefficient and reflectivity thresholds are shown to improve the derived wind field. Single-Doppler radial velocity data, winds derived from the NEXRAD Transverse Wind algorithm, and SAM data are compared. The dissimiliar natures of the Doppler radial velocity data and the derived wind data are demonstrated. The derived wind field is shown to be closely related to the surface wind field as represented by the surface meso-analyses for three cases. A feature ("marching vectors"), which appears in areas of relatively weak uniform reflectivity, is identified in the derived wind data. The NEXRAD Transverse Wind algorithm is used for the first time in an area (gust front) where there is confidence that the vectors are derived from motions at their own level and not from some generator level