When Moody’s altered a rating policy, it made some companies look less risky — and led them to take on more debt With Gregory Weitzner of McGill University, he found when Moody’s reclassified some securities on companies’ balance sheets, it prompted them to borrow an average 22% more — perhaps because they could do so without hurting their credit ratings. “They raised more debt, and they increased their investments, even though financially, nothing really had happened to the companies,” Fracassi says.