Publications

December 2012
Background Note

Glossary of Municipal Finance Terms

A note on municipal bond structuring. View Details

Keywords: Local Government; Political Process; Debt Management; Financial Planning; Financial Management; Bonds; Urban Development; Local Range; Government Administration

Fast Answer

Where can I find ratings of municipal bonds? Use Bloomberg: For credit worthiness of US states and territories, type STGO then press GO. To identify specific state securities, type SECF then press GO. Change the... View Details

2011
Working Paper

Why Fears about Municipal Credit Are Overblown

Highly publicized predictions of 50-100 municipal defaults have caused anxiety among municipal bond investors. While there is some chance that negative investor sentiment will lead to further spread widening, the probability of the kind of widespread default that would... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Borrowing and Debt; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Bonds; Investment Return; City

16 Jul 2018
News

Municipalities could benefit from issuing more green bonds

2011
Working Paper

Fractionalization and the Municipal Bond Market

We study the impact of ethnic and religious fractionalization on the U.S. municipal debt market and find that issuers from more ethnically and religiously fractionalized counties pay higher yields on their municipal debt. A two standard deviation increase in religious... View Details

Keywords: Ethnicity Characteristics; Bonds; Financial Markets; Investment Return; Geographic Location; City; Religion; United States

May 1994 (Revised December 1994)
Case

Fidelity Investments: Spartan Florida Municipal Fund

By: Andre F. Perold and Sanjay Bhatnagar

Keywords: Investment Funds; Financial Services Industry; Florida

May 1991 (Revised December 1994)
Case

State of Connecticut Municipal Swap

By: Andre F. Perold

The state of Connecticut wants to raise $325 million of long-term fixed-rate debt. One alternative is to do this synthetically--issue long-term variable rate debt and enter into an interest rate swap. The case is a vehicle for analyzing various floating rate structures... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Credit Derivatives and Swaps; Interest Rates; Taxation; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Risk and Uncertainty; New England

February 1996 (Revised May 1996)
Teaching Note

Fidelity Investments: Spartan Florida Municipal Fund (TN)

By: Andre F. Perold and Wai Lee

Keywords: City; Investment Funds; Florida

June 1995 (Revised May 1996)
Teaching Note

State of Connecticut Municipal Swap TN

By: Andre F. Perold and Wai Lee

Teaching Note for (9-291-024). View Details

Keywords: Credit Derivatives and Swaps; Connecticut

September 2023
Background Note

Amager Bakke: Municipal Waste to Energy

By: Willy Shih, Michael W. Toffel and Kelsey Carter

This background note describes the Amager Bakke waste-to-energy (WtE) plant in Copenhagen, which merges traditional waste incineration with a combined heat and power (CHP) plant and air pollution control (scrubbing) technology, and had plans to add carbon dioxide (CO2)... View Details

01 Mar 2015
News

Debt-Saddled Municipal Budgets Get a Lifeline

November 2014
Article

Government Green Procurement Spillovers: Evidence from Municipal Building Policies in California

By: Timothy Simcoe and Michael W. Toffel

We study how government green procurement policies influence private-sector demand for similar products. Specifically, we measure the impact of municipal policies requiring governments to construct green buildings on private-sector adoption of the U.S. Green Building... View Details

Keywords: Public Procurement; Green Building; Quality Certification; Environmental Policy; Buildings and Facilities; Environmental Sustainability; Policy; Government and Politics; Green Technology Industry; Public Administration Industry; California

04 Feb 2018
Working Paper Summaries

The Long-Run Dynamics of Electricity Demand: Evidence from Municipal Aggregation

Keywords: by Alexander MacKay, Tatyana Deryugina, and Julian Reif; Utilities

April 4, 2012
Article

Public-pension Pitfalls: What Municipal Budget Pressures Mean for Bond Investors

By: Robert C. Pozen and Theresa Hamacher

January 2020
Article

The Long-Run Dynamics of Electricity Demand: Evidence from Municipal Aggregation

By: Tatyana Deryugina, Alexander MacKay and Julian Reif

We study the dynamics of residential electricity demand by exploiting a natural experiment that produced large and long-lasting price changes in over 250 Illinois communities. Using a flexible difference-in-differences matching approach, we estimate that the price... View Details

Keywords: Electricity Demand; Consumption Dynamics; Energy; Policy; Demand and Consumers; Price; Mathematical Methods

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April 1992 (Revised June 1994)
Case

Grappling with Garbage: The Bandung Municipal Cleansing Enterprise, P.D. Kerbersihan

By: James E. Austin

Keywords: Wastes and Waste Processing; Business and Government Relations; Developing Countries and Economies; Environmental Sustainability; Indonesia

Working Paper

The Long-Run Dynamics of Electricity Demand: Evidence from Municipal Aggregation

By: Tatyana Deryugina, Alexander MacKay and Julian Reif

Economic theory suggests that demand is more elastic in the long run relative to the short run, but evidence on the empirical relevance of this phenomenon is scarce. We study the dynamics of residential electricity demand by exploiting price variation arising from a... View Details

Keywords: Energy; Demand and Consumers; Price; Policy; Mathematical Methods

29 Jan 2021
News

Half of New Orleans City Hall employees to work remote in move to Municipal Auditorium

2020
Other Unpublished Work

Ground Work vs. Social Media: How to Best Reach Voters in French Municipal Elections

By: Vincent Pons and Vestal McIntyre