In the municipal bond market, announcements of changes in general obligation bond ratings by the rating agencies are typically made con­currently with announcements of new bond issues. Hence, prior research on the information content of municipal bond rating change announcements is subject to...

This paper provides an introduction to and a review of governmental capital markets based research. It updates earlier studies and focuses on recent methodological developments. Prior research is classified ac­cording to the type of data used, emphasizing special topics that have received...

Audits conducted under the 1984 Single Audit Act go beyond the traditional financial statement audit by placing substantial additional emphasis on the review and evaluation of internal controls and testing of compliance with laws and regulations. The General Accounting Office (GAO),...

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB, 1987, p. 12) has identified bond investors as a primary user group of government financial reports and is currently active in setting standards for pension accounting and reporting (GASB, 1986, 1988; lves, 1988). However, relatively little is known...

Currently, there is no integrating theory which specifies why governmental pension plans are so significantly underfunded. In this study, we test several hypotheses concerning such underfunding in a cross-sectional regression model for state-administered pension plans. The conceptual model...

Considerable evidence exists that governmental accounting numbers are related empirically to bond risk and return measures. However, prior research does not preclude the possibility that accounting numbers merely reflect unobserved factors such as economic and political attributes impounded in...