90457 - Economics of Ratings and Rankings

Learning outcomes

In recent years, first in markets for trust services (financial, insurance, health, education, social) and then in markets for ordinary services and durable goods, quantitative indicators have been developed to reduce information asymmetries, to foster competition and, more generally, to promote allocative efficiency. The increased availability of data on the characteristics of services and goods, as well as of their users, is likely to lead to a further increase in the use of these indicators and therefore to a growing need to verify their allocative effects. Moreover, there will be rising problems due to potential conflicts of interest on the head of the third-party certifiers. The course will provide the students with the law and economics tools to understand the effects of different types of performance indicators and of the different forms of regulation of the markets for certification as well as of the different types of public agencies’ interventions.

Course contents

Markets with asymmetric information: private and public regulatory tools

• Allocative effects of asymmetric information
• Contractual solutions and market regulation
• Quality disclosure and third-party certification
• Accreditation, ratings and rankings
• Credit Rating Agencies

The effects of ratings and rankings

• Financial and insurance markets
• Professional services (health, education and legal services)

Readings/Bibliography

The reading list and slides for this course will be available on Virtuale.

Teaching methods

Classroom lectures.

Assessment methods

Students who regularly attend lectures during the last two class meetings will be required to give a 15/20 minute presentation on one of the topics covered in the course (max 20 points).

At the end of the course, all students will be required to take a written test (2-3 open-ended questions, max 12 points).

Those who do not choose to give an in-class presentation on the day of the exam will have to take a written test in which they will be given an outline to develop a short essay in 90 minutes (max 20 points).

Students can choose the approach that is more coherent with their own background. However, they are expected to address the proposed themes with a good level of rigour and appropriateness and to take into consideration the interdisciplinary nature of the issues at stake.

Academic dishonesty in any form will not be tolerated. To take the exam, you are required to enroll in Almaesami.

The grade will go from 30 to 18, depending on the level of understanding of the relevant material, and the quality of the writing output. The student has the right to refuse the passing grade obtained only once.

30-27

-Outstanding grasp of the course material.

-Excellent writing output

26-23

-Substantial understanding of the course material.

-Good writing output

25-22

-Decent understanding of the course material.

-Decent writing output

21-18

-Sufficient understanding of the course material.

-Sufficient writing output.

Negative assessment

-Scarce understanding of the course material.

-Scarce writing output.

Teaching tools

Blackboard and chalk. Slides.

Office hours

See the website of Luciano Messori