Local religious beliefs and municipal bond market outcomes

Alex Annan Abakah

Financial Management, 2020, vol. 49, issue 2, 447-471

Abstract: This study investigates whether religion‐induced risk aversion affects municipal bond market outcomes from 1990 to 2017. The results indicate that local government bonds issued from U.S. counties with a high Catholic‐to‐Protestant population ratio have lower credit risk ratings and lower yield spreads, and are less likely to have credit enhancement. The results stand up to additional tests. I control for issuer's county political party affiliation and state term limits, and continue to find significant effects. The effects are not driven by the issuer's county fiscal policies. Furthermore, the effects persist when I use an alternate specification that controls for omitted factors that are time invariant. Overall, my evidence suggests that a bond issuer's religion‐induced risk aversion plays a significant role in the pricing of local government bonds.

Date: 2020
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