This paper examines the consequences of powerful political connections for local governments. We find that governments located within the constituencies of, and thus connected to, powerful congressional members reduce their stewardship over public resources. Using plausibly-exogenous declines in...

We examine whether municipal market participants' sensitivity to changes in local home values varies with the quality of local governments' financial reports. We find the credit ratings and bond yields of governments that are required to comply with GAAP are less sensitive to changes in local...

We use the relaxation of interstate branching restrictions under the Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act (IBBEA) to examine how increases in competition affect incumbents' voluntary disclosure choices. States implemented the IBBEA over several years and to varying degrees, allowing...

I investigate whether access to fundamental information enhances retail investors' bargaining power, reducing the premium that small municipal bond investors pay over large investors. I find a reduction in this small trade premium after the introduction of an online disclosure repository that...

I investigate the trade-off between capital market incentives, reputational concerns, and administrative costs in the public disclosure decisions of municipal bond issuers. After Ambac's bankruptcy, issuers of insured debt increase disclosure relative to issuers of uninsured debt. After local...

This study develops and applies a model-implied measure of information imprecision. We define information imprecision as the degree of noise in investors' prior beliefs about the firm's asset value based on the information set that is currently available. We present a model of credit default...

This paper examines the consequences of powerful political connections for local governments. We find that governments located within the constituencies of, and thus connected to, powerful congressional members reduce their stewardship over public resources. Using plausibly-exogenous declines in...

We study the relation between disclosure and competition for capital, using Moody's 2010 recalibration of the municipal rating scale. On a relative basis, the recalibration advantaged highly upgraded issuers and disadvantaged lowly upgraded issuers. We develop a model to show that for...

This paper provides evidence that disclosing corporate bond investors' transaction costs (markups) affects the size of the markups. Until recently, markups were embedded in the reported transaction price and not explicitly disclosed. Without explicit disclosure, investors can estimate their...

Theories of congressional dominance contend that regulatory agencies can be captured by the politicians that oversee them. We examine whether control systems and transparency constrain such capture. Using the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) as a setting, we begin by providing...