At year-end 2019, the regional consolidated budgets and local government off-budget funds' budgets ran a surplus of RUB 17.4 billion or 0.02 percent of GDP (contraction by around 30-fold over the year). To compare, in 2018 the regional consolidated budgets and local government off-budget funds'...

We consider how state income tax changes affect the demand for municipal bonds by in-state investors. A tax increase (decrease) makes investing in municipal bonds more (less) desirable, and theory predicts a change in demand by investors until the yields on municipal bonds reach a new...

We investigate whether credit rating agencies (CRAs) and investors price the extent to which municipal bond ratings are explainable using public information. We use an ordinal logistic regression to estimate the expected and unexpected portions of bond ratings, and find that both CRA fees and...

This study examines whether the financial health of municipal bond investors can affect the municipal bond yield by especially focusing on the liquidity component. We find that the deterioration of the financial health of bond investors widens the liquidity spread of municipal bonds, and this...

We ask whether credit rating agencies receive higher fees and gain greater market share when they provide more favorable ratings. To investigate this question, we use the 2010 rating scale recalibration by Moody's and Fitch, which increased ratings absent any underlying change in issuer credit...

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...

We analyze an extensive sample of tax-exempt and taxable municipal bonds to better understand how municipals behave without federal tax-exemption. We find taxable municipals are issued at higher yields in high state tax rate jurisdictions, are less likely to be issued in these areas, and more...

We show that municipalities' financial constraints can have a significant impact on local employment and growth. We identify these effects by exploiting exogenous upgrades in U.S. municipal bond ratings caused by Moody's recalibration of its ratings scale in 2010. We find that local governments...

The implementation of the Government Accounting Standards Board's Statement 45 mandates disclosure of other post-employment benefits in a standardized format. The mandate provides an opportunity to analyze non-information impacts of mandatory disclosures, as key components of the information...

Municipal bonds have traditionally been considered, rightly or wrongly, mundane assets that require little regulation. However, the most recent financial crisis did not leave municipal bonds untouched. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 and liquidity...