기업지배구조 관점에서 신용등급 불일치의 원인에 대한 고찰

This study examines the effect of corporate governance on rating disagreement among credit rating agencies (CRAs). Prior empirical findings suggest that precise financial reporting decreases information risk, and thereby, affects split ratings by rating agencies. However, there has not been prior research that investigates the association between corporate governance and split ratings, even though good corporate governance can reduce information asymmetry between the firm and investors in the capital market. In particular, this study investigates the determinant of the split ratings based on the governance score of the Korea Corporate Governance Service. We find that there is a negative relation between the improvement of corporate governance and rating disagreement among CRAs. Additionally, we find that corporate governance has a negative moderating effect in the positive relationship between the size of discretionary accruals and split ratings. These empirical results imply that split ratings are less likely to occur in firms that are evaluated as having relatively low information asymmetry problem in terms of corporate governance. This study contributes to prior research on credit ratings and governance by improving our understanding the effect of corporate governance on split ratings among CRAs.