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Journal Article
The bonds of debt
The recent financial crisis blew a hole in the municipal bond market. But it has been shifting for more than a year.
Report
Liquidity in U.S. fixed income markets: a comparison of the bid-ask spread in corporate, government and municipal bond markets
We examine the determinants of the realized bid-ask spread in the U.S. corporate, municipal and government bond markets for the years 1995 to 1997, based on newly available transactions data. Overall, we find that liquidity is an important determinant of the realized bid-ask spread in all three markets. Specifically, in all markets, the realized bid-ask spread decreases in the trading volume. Additionally, risk factors are important in the corporate and municipal markets. In these markets, the bid-ask spread increases in the remaining-time-to maturity of a bond. The corporate bond spread also ...
Journal Article
The municipal bond market, Part I: politics, taxes, and yields
This article assesses recent changes in the structure of the municipal bond market. It reviews the tax legislation, judicial interpretations, and other factors that affect the yield on municipal bonds. These factors are then employed in a statistical analysis of the determinants of municipal bond yields. ; The results of the analysis show that the ratio of yield to maturity on municipal bonds to yields on U.S. Treasury bonds (the interest rate ratio) has varied greatly in the past two decades and is greater for longer maturities. They also show that debate during 1986 about tax reform ...
Journal Article
Do municipal bond yields forecast tax policy?
During the recent flat tax debate, interest rates on long-term municipal bonds rose relative to the rate on U.S. Treasury bonds. This was widely attributed to expectations of a reduction in future tax rates. While an axiom of finance states that current asset prices reflect expectations about future events, there is no consensus on how sensitive municipal bond yields are to expectations about future tax rates. This study assesses that question by examining the relationship between the implicit tax rate and actual future tax rates.> Efficient markets theory predicts that the implicit tax ...
Newsletter
Tempestuous municipal debt markets: Oxymoron or new reality?
Municipal bonds (munis) are issued by states, cities, or other local government agencies. They may be general obligations of the issuer or secured by specified revenues, like fees paid by tollway users. The interest on municipal bonds is usually exempt from federal income taxes. Investors have long regarded these bonds as a relatively safe investment. Not coincidentally, holdings of municipal securities (or munis) have been heavily concentrated among household investors, who own about two-thirds of the $2.9 trillion market.
Journal Article
Tax-free bonds
Journal Article
Municipal bond behavior
Working Paper
The determinants of commercial bank holdings of municipal securities: 1985-1988
This paper presents an empirical analysis of commercial bank holdings of municipal securities (munis) from June 1985 through December 1988, using the FFIEC's Reports of Condition and income. While motivated by previous analyses suggesting that a shift from munis to taxable securities is a primary determinant of the overall impact of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 on bank profitability, this paper does not directly analyze the impact of that legislation. However, the paper modifies the specification of muni demand employed in previous analyses to consider roles for state pledging requirements, ...
Working Paper
An analysis of the determinants of the yields on individual municipal securities
This working paper is the final version of an unpublished paper originally presented at the 1981 meeting of the Western Finance Association. The paper was referenced frequently in an article by one of the authors in the May/June 1982 issue of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Economic Review entitled "Determinants of Individual Tax-Exempt Bond Yields: A Survey of Evidence." ; This study presents the results of a comprehensive regression analysis of the determinates of tax-exempt municipal bond yields. A substantial literature on the factors influencing municipal yields has developed over ...
Working Paper
Liquidity, default, taxes and yields on municipal bonds
We examine the relative yields of Treasuries and municipals using a generalized model that includes liquidity as a state factor. Using a unique transaction dataset, we are able to estimate the liquidity risk of municipals and its effect on bond yields. We find that a substantial portion of the maturity spread between long- and short-maturity municipal bonds is attributable to the liquidity premium. Controlling for the effects of default and liquidity risk, we obtain implicit tax rates very close to the statutory tax rates of high-income individuals and corporations, and these tax rate ...