 COVID-19, lockdowns, and the municipal bond marketNhu Tran and Cihan Uzmanoglu Journal of Banking & Finance, 2022, vol. 143, issue C Abstract: We study how investors in the US municipal bond market price the state lockdowns announced during the coronavirus (COVID) pandemic. To begin with, we examine the extent to which state-level COVID developments influence yield spreads of municipal bonds. We find that macro-level factors are the primary determinants of municipal bond spreads during the pandemic, but state-level COVID developments also matter at the margin. For instance, a doubling of new COVID cases in a state is associated with a 2% (1.4 basis points) increase in yield spreads of municipal bonds issued in that state. Accordingly, lockdowns may decrease municipal bond spreads by reducing COVID cases, but lockdowns may also increase them by reducing local economic activities. Overall, we find that yield spreads in both primary and secondary municipal bond markets increase by about 15% following lockdown announcements, suggesting that lockdown announcements increase the risk premiums investors require for holding municipal bonds. Keywords: COVID-19; Pandemic response; Stay-at-home orders; Nonessential business shutdowns; Municipal bonds; Cost of borrowing; Local governments; States (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:143:y:2022:i:c:s0378426622001868 DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2022.106590 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Banking & Finance is currently edited by Ike Mathur More articles in Journal of Banking & Finance from Elsevier |
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