Did Credit Rating Agencies Cause the European Sovereign Debt Crisis?

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Rosa Abrantes-Metz, Jan 28, 2014

It must not be easy being a rating agency. Where corporate debt is concerned, the major credit rating agencies are said to be too slow and lagging the market. When the topic is structured finance, the agencies are said to inflate ratings to attract business. And when the subject is European sovereign debt, those same agencies are said to be suddenly too conservative, issuing aggressive downgrades