This article revisits government failure theory by examining the relationship between government decentralization and the size of the nonprofit sector (NPS). Government failure theory posits that nonprofits are most active in regions where the largest gap exists between the homogeneous supply of...

This article explores the question of whether bond insurers are able to sufficiently evaluate the credit risk of insured bonds, the answer to which would determine the future of municipal bond insurance. A sample of insured municipal bonds is investigated to determine whether bond insurance...

This study examines how familiarities between the main actors in the underwriting process affected the borrowing costs of municipal bonds in the primary market in California between 2001 and 2006. The author finds that familiarities play an important role in determining the borrowing costs of...

Although most empirical studies find that competitive bidding can reduce the interest cost, the municipal bond primary market is dominated by negotiated offerings. This study uses a large sample of 13650 municipal bonds to explain this dilemma by empirically testing two hypotheses,...

Conventional wisdom argues that competitive bidding, compared to negotiated sale, can reduce the interest cost of municipal bonds in the primary market. Studies correcting for self-selection bias have mixed findings. However, these studies are subject to some potential methodological issues....