We provide the first evidence of systematic bias among an emerging type of credit rating agency that relies on subscriptions from institutional clients as its primary source of revenue. Using data from Egan-Jones Ratings Company (EJR), a representative subscriber-paid rating agency, we show that EJR issues more optimistically biased credit ratings, less timely downgrades, and less accurate ratings for bonds held by more EJR clients. Our evidence is consistent with EJR optimistically biasing its ratings to bolster subscriber revenue, which allows institutional clients to invest in riskier bonds with higher expected returns. Taken together, our findings suggest that the emergence of subscriber-paid rating agencies as an alternative to more traditional issuer-paid agencies is unlikely to resolve problems arising from conflicts of interest but rather alter the nature of these conflicts in the ratings process.

我们首次提供了新兴信用评级机构存在系统性偏见的证据，该机构依赖机构客户的订阅作为其主要收入来源。我们使用代表性的订户付费评级机构 Egan-Jones Ratings Company (EJR) 的数据表明，EJR 对更多 EJR 客户持有的债券发布了更乐观的信用评级、更不及时的降级和更不准确的评级。我们的证据与 EJR 乐观地偏向其评级以增加订户收入一致，这使机构客户能够投资于预期回报更高的风险更高的债券。综合起来，