Are credit rating agencies users of government accounting information? Evidence from the sovereign rating process

This article examines whether credit rating agencies (CRAs) qualify as users of sovereign government accounting information. The analysis of two rating methodologies and 18 interviews with rating analysts reveal that sovereign ratings are generated using data drawn primarily from government finance statistics, rather than government financial reports. The reason is that only the former produce information that, while far from comprehensive, is comparable across sovereigns; a quality that government financial reports presently lack. Accordingly, CRAs are not users of sovereign government accounting information.