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Credit rating agencies
Credit rating agencies are companies that evaluate the ability of governments and large companies, to pay back it's debt.
Biggest credit rating agencies are:
- Standard & Poor's
- Moody's
- Fitch Ratings
These sector is very concentrated. Standard & Poors and Moody's have 80% of the market.
The search and acquisition of information is costly. Credit rating agencies solve partially this issue. They sell their information to governments and large companies.
The creditability of credit rating agencies has fallen after the subprime crisis. Agencies gave good scores to mortgage backed investments, whose value fell sharply during the crisis. They gave an “A” (a very good qualification) to Lehman Brothers, that went bankruptcy after the crisis.
Clients
Historically, the issuers of instruments have been the clients of the credit rating agencies. 
Discussion