Emerging market economies started to seek credit ratings in the 1990s, when they once again
started to issue bonds in global markets. Although bonds had traditionally been the main
borrowing instruments of sovereigns, the instrument basically disappeared from global financial
markets after the economic collapses in the 1930s, and international syndicated bank loans
became the dominant mechanism for developing countries borrowing in the 1970s. These loans
went largely into default in the early 1980s, and the restructuring of those debts into “Brady
Bonds” created the current version of the international bond market for these economies.