... of financial assets, the institutions (both public and private) that guarantee the assets, and the asset managers that act as agents for the principals or owners. An asset manager, for example, ... ratings, the regulatory license view agrees with the reputational capital view: rating agencies sell information and survive based on their ability to accumulate and retain reputational capital. ... that any strong conclusions could be drawn in evaluating ratings agency performance: The most favorable conclusion one can derive from the past payment performance of rated state and local...