Wickens, M. and Polito, V., (2013), “A fiscal perspective on EU sovereign credit ratings: Did the credit-rating agencies get them right?”, VoxEU, 30 October.
A good credit rating has become a key fiscal objective, even if it requires austerity when unemployment is high. Recent experience has raised doubts about the sovereign ratings provided by the credit-rating agencies. This column suggests a new way to measure credit ratings based on a country’s ability to meet its liabilities using fiscal policy. This measure would have identified and signalled to market participants signs of the impending European sovereign-debt crisis well before 2010, when the rating agencies first reacted to the crisis.
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Relevant Posts
- Furceri, D. and Zdzienicka, A., (2013), “The Euro Area Crisis: Need for a Supranational Fiscal Risk Sharing Mechanism?”, IMF Working Papers Series, WP/13/198, September.
- Gaillard, N., (2013), “Credit rating agencies and the Eurozone Crisis: What is the value of sovereign ratings?”, VoxEU, 9 September.
- Mazower, M., (2013), “No Exit? Greece’s Ongoing Crisis“, The Nation, 13 March.