The illusion of transparency
The Political Double Standard in City Credit Ratings
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4237682 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Davon Norris (0000-0002-3590-6473, The Ohio State University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 21 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 1125-1150 |
| Publication date | 2023-06-07 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Socio-Economic Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1475-1461 • E-ISSN: 1475-147X |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/ser/mwac016 |
| OpenAlex | W4226301512 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 56 |
Ratings proliferate in social life though underlying biases in how ratings are constructed are obscured. Rating criteria-formal a priori standards about the relevant factors for an evaluation-hold promise for creating transparency, eliminating biases and generating meritocratic evaluations through standardization and uncertainty reduction. Yet, little is known about whether criteria in fact eliminate biases or introduce new complexities. Using original data on credit ratings for 109 US city governments from 2002 to 2009, I test whether a rating agency's rating criteria is applied evenly across cities. Results provide evidence of a political double standard where liberal-leaning cities are evaluated according to a more strict application of rating criteria requiring these cities to have higher performance for similar ratings compared to their conservative counterparts. These findings highlight a mechanism producing inequality between cities and demonstrate how generating meritocratic and unbiased evaluations requires more than the existence and transparency of rating criteria
Actuarial science · Agency (philosophy) · Bond credit rating · Conservatism · Credit rating · Economics · Meritocracy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Standardization · Transparency (behavior) · Housing Market and Economics · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law · Political and Economic history of UK and US
Divested
Fixed Effects Regression Models
Are red or blue companies more likely to go green? Politics and corporate social responsibility
Political Ideology
Buying Time
The New Masters of Capital
The Neoliberal City
The Bonds of Inequality
Starving the Beast
The Tyranny of Transparency
How Are We Apart? Continuity and Change in the Structure of Ideological Disagreement in the American Public, 1980–2012
White Men Can’t Jump, but Does It Even Matter? Exit Discrimination in the NBA
Income Inequality and the Persistence of Racial Economic Disparities
Credit rating agencies and the sovereign debt crisis
Is Good Credit Good? State Credit Ratings and Economic Insecurity, 1996–2012 1
Imagined Futures
A Neoliberal Response to an Urban Crisis
Categories and Organizational Status
Measuring Constituent Policy Preferences in Congress, State Legislatures, and Cities
The Origins and Meaning of Liberal/Conservative Self-Identifications
Reading risk
Status Characteristics and Social Interaction
Shaming the Corporation
Tax increment financing, economic development professionals and the financialization of urban politics
From uncertainty toward risk
Scaling Down Inequality
It's the Conventional Thought That Counts
Toward a New Macro-Segregation? Decomposing Segregation within and between Metropolitan Cities and Suburbs
The Mark of a Woman's Record
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Black-White child poverty gap in the United States
Financialization as calculative practice
What is missing? Cultural processes and causal pathways to inequality
The art of deciding with data
For what it's worth
Disparate Impact? Race, Sex, and Credit Reports in Hiring
Putting the World in Orders
The Sociology of Discrimination
Double Standards for Competence
Credit, Debt, and Inequality
A Sociological (De)Construction of the Relationship between Status and Quality
Gender, Race, and Meritocracy in Organizational Careers
Institutionalized Organizations
Forms of uncertainty reduction
The social order of markets
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2025 (2) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |