Recent studies of the Fisher relation have yielded contradictory conclusions on the importance of taxes in determining the long-run response of nominal interest rates to changes in expected inflation. This study uses data on taxable U.S. treasury and tax exempt municipal bond interest rates to...

The Tax Act of 1986 changed the tax treatment of tax-exempt municipal bonds for banks. Since banks were the dominant participant in the municipal bond market until 1986, some believe that this resulted in the breakdown of the long-run equilibrium relationship between municipal and U.S. treasury...

Are nominal bonds appropriately discounted for taxes? Empirical estimates of the response of nominal interest rates to changes in inflation, the Fisher effect, have failed to produce a definitive answer. Four reasons have been put forward as possible explanations: (i) Tobin effects, (ii) fiscal...