{"title":"The Perils of Removing Rating-Based Regulation: Evidence From the US Money Market Funds Reform","authors":"S. Lugo","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3301330","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Focusing on the 2016 US money market funds (MMFs) reform, this study assesses the impact of removing rating-based rules on the behavior of regulated investors and on market prices. Difference-in-differences fund-level and security-level analyses show a positive impact of the reform on the level of risk-taking by non-government MMFs. No empirical support is found for alternative explanations for the verified change in portfolio allocation. This shift has material consequences for the pricing of credit risk: all else equal, the reform-driven increase in the demand for riskier securities by MMFs is associated with a significant decrease in credit premia for commercial papers.","PeriodicalId":266240,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Econometric Studies of Government Regulation of Financial Markets (Topic)","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2019-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"ERN: Econometric Studies of Government Regulation of Financial Markets (Topic)","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3301330","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Focusing on the 2016 US money market funds (MMFs) reform, this study assesses the impact of removing rating-based rules on the behavior of regulated investors and on market prices. Difference-in-differences fund-level and security-level analyses show a positive impact of the reform on the level of risk-taking by non-government MMFs. No empirical support is found for alternative explanations for the verified change in portfolio allocation. This shift has material consequences for the pricing of credit risk: all else equal, the reform-driven increase in the demand for riskier securities by MMFs is associated with a significant decrease in credit premia for commercial papers.