IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fednsr/93156.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Option Value of Municipal Liquidity: Evidence from Federal Lending Cutoffs during COVID-19

Author

Abstract

We estimate the option value of municipal liquidity by studying bond market activity and public sector hiring decisions when government budgets are severely distressed. Using a regression discontinuity (RD) design, we exploit lending eligibility population cutoffs introduced by the federal sector’s Municipal Liquidity Facility (MLF) to study the effects of an emergency liquidity option on yields, primary debt issuance, and public sector employment. We find that while the announcement of the liquidity option improved overall municipal bond market functioning, lower-rated issuers additionally benefited from direct access to the facility—their bonds traded at higher prices and were issued more frequently, suggesting a potential credit-risk sharing channel on top of the Fed’s role as liquidity-provider of last resort. Local governments, by contrast, responded to emergency liquidity measures by recalling a greater share of service-providing government employees (mostly educational institution workers), but recalls were only sustained for higher-rated municipalities. This hiring responsiveness is consistent with the hypothesis that large government furloughs might have over-weighted the worst possible outcomes based on past experience. Together, the results suggest that municipalities would likely have been more distressed absent the emergency liquidity.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew F. Haughwout & Benjamin Hyman & Or Shachar, 2021. "The Option Value of Municipal Liquidity: Evidence from Federal Lending Cutoffs during COVID-19," Staff Reports 988, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fednsr:93156
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr988.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/staff_reports/sr988.html
    File Function: Summary
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard C. Green & Dan Li & Norman Schürhoff, 2010. "Price Discovery in Illiquid Markets: Do Financial Asset Prices Rise Faster Than They Fall?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(5), pages 1669-1702, October.
    2. Gabriel Chodorow-Reich, 2019. "Geographic Cross-Sectional Fiscal Spending Multipliers: What Have We Learned?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 1-34, May.
    3. Manuel Adelino & Igor Cunha & Miguel A. Ferreira, 2017. "The Economic Effects of Public Financing: Evidence from Municipal Bond Ratings Recalibration," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(9), pages 3223-3268.
    4. Michael D. Bordo & John V. Duca, 2021. "How the New Fed Municipal Bond Facility Capped Muni-Treasury Yield Spreads in the COVID-19 Recession," Working Papers 2101, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    5. Tania Babina & Chotibhak Jotikasthira & Christian Lundblad & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Heterogeneous Taxes and Limited Risk Sharing: Evidence from Municipal Bonds [The distribution of realized stock return volatility]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(1), pages 509-568.
    6. Schultz, Paul, 2012. "The market for new issues of municipal bonds: The roles of transparency and limited access to retail investors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(3), pages 492-512.
    7. Amihud, Yakov, 2002. "Illiquidity and stock returns: cross-section and time-series effects," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 31-56, January.
    8. Tania Babina & Chotibhak Jotikasthira & Christian Lundblad & Tarun Ramadorai & Andrew Karolyi, 0. "Heterogeneous Taxes and Limited Risk Sharing: Evidence from Municipal Bonds," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 34(1), pages 509-568.
    9. Boyarchenko, Nina & Kovner, Anna & Shachar, Or, 2020. "It’s what you say and what you buy: A holistic evaluation of the Corporate Credit Facilities," CEPR Discussion Papers 15432, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Hahn, Jinyong & Todd, Petra & Van der Klaauw, Wilbert, 2001. "Identification and Estimation of Treatment Effects with a Regression-Discontinuity Design," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(1), pages 201-209, January.
    11. Matias D. Cattaneo & Michael Jansson & Xinwei Ma, 2018. "Manipulation testing based on density discontinuity," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 18(1), pages 234-261, March.
    12. Wang, Junbo & Wu, Chunchi & Zhang, Frank X., 2008. "Liquidity, default, taxes, and yields on municipal bonds," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1133-1149, June.
    13. Boyarchenko, Nina & Kovner, Anna & Shachar, Or, 2022. "It’s what you say and what you buy: A holistic evaluation of the corporate credit facilities," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(3), pages 695-731.
    14. Luck, Stephan & Zimmermann, Tom, 2020. "Employment effects of unconventional monetary policy: Evidence from QE," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(3), pages 678-703.
    15. Colin Gray & Adam Leive & Elena Prager & Kelsey Pukelis & Mary Zaki, 2023. "Employed in a SNAP? The Impact of Work Requirements on Program Participation and Labor Supply," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 306-341, February.
    16. Huixin Bi & W. Blake Marsh, 2020. "Flight to Liquidity or Safety? Recent Evidence from the Municipal Bond Market," Research Working Paper RWP 20-19, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    17. Poterba, James M., 1989. "Tax reform and the market for tax-exempt debt," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 537-562, August.
    18. Robert Novy-Marx & Joshua D. Rauh, 2012. "Fiscal Imbalances and Borrowing Costs: Evidence from State Investment Losses," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 182-213, May.
    19. Jankowitsch, Rainer & Nashikkar, Amrut & Subrahmanyam, Marti G., 2011. "Price dispersion in OTC markets: A new measure of liquidity," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 343-357, February.
    20. Gao, Pengjie & Lee, Chang & Murphy, Dermot, 2019. "Municipal borrowing costs and state policies for distressed municipalities," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(2), pages 404-426.
    21. Brigham R. Frandsen, 2017. "Party Bias in Union Representation Elections: Testing for Manipulation in the Regression Discontinuity Design when the Running Variable is Discrete," Advances in Econometrics, in: Regression Discontinuity Designs, volume 38, pages 281-315, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    22. Marco Cipriani & Gabriele La Spada & Reed Orchinik & Aaron Plesset, 2020. "The Money Market Fund Liquidity Facility," Liberty Street Economics 20200508, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    23. Tania Babina & Chotibhak Jotikasthira & Christian Lundblad & Tarun Ramadorai & Andrew Karolyi, 2021. "Heterogeneous Taxes and Limited Risk Sharing: Evidence from Municipal Bonds," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 34(1), pages 509-568.
    24. Marco Cipriani & Andrew F. Haughwout & Benjamin Hyman & Anna Kovner & Gabriele La Spada & Matthew Lieber & Shawn Nee, 2020. "Municipal Debt Markets and the COVID-19 Pandemic," Liberty Street Economics 20200629, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    25. Jess Cornaggia & Kimberly J. Cornaggia & Ryan D. Israelsen, 2018. "Credit Ratings and the Cost of Municipal Financing," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(6), pages 2038-2079.
    26. McCrary, Justin, 2008. "Manipulation of the running variable in the regression discontinuity design: A density test," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 698-714, February.
    27. Christo A. Pirinsky & Qinghai Wang, 2011. "Market Segmentation and the Cost of Capital in a Domestic Market: Evidence from Municipal Bonds," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 40(2), pages 455-481, June.
    28. Michael Schwert, 2017. "Municipal Bond Liquidity and Default Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(4), pages 1683-1722, August.
    29. Roll, Richard, 1984. "A Simple Implicit Measure of the Effective Bid-Ask Spread in an Efficient Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(4), pages 1127-1139, September.
    30. Lawrence E. Harris & Michael S. Piwowar, 2006. "Secondary Trading Costs in the Municipal Bond Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(3), pages 1361-1397, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andrew F. Haughwout & Benjamin Hyman & Or Shachar, 2021. "COVID Response: The Municipal Liquidity Facility," Staff Reports 985, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    2. W. Blake Marsh & Padma Sharma, 2021. "Government Loan Guarantees during a Crisis: The Effect of the PPP on Bank Lending and Profitability," Research Working Paper RWP 21-03, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    3. Gordon, Grey & Guerron-Quintana, Pablo, 2024. "On regional borrowing, default, and migration," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    4. Grey Gordon & Pablo Guerrón-Quintana, 2021. "Public Debt, Private Pain: Regional Borrowing, Default, and Migration," Working Paper 21-13, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    5. Bi, Huixin & Traum, Nora, 2023. "Unconventional monetary policy and local fiscal policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    6. Ivanov, Ivan T. & Zimmermann, Tom & Heinrich, Nathan W., 2022. "Limits of disclosure regulation in the municipal bond market," CFR Working Papers 22-05, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    7. Tran, Nhu & Uzmanoglu, Cihan, 2023. "Reprint of: COVID-19, lockdowns, and the municipal bond market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    8. Clemens, Jeffrey & Hoxie, Philip & Kearns, John & Veuger, Stan, 2023. "How did federal aid to states and localities affect testing and vaccine delivery?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 225(C).
    9. Jeffrey Clemens & Philip G. Hoxie & Stan Veuger, 2022. "Was Pandemic Fiscal Relief Effective Fiscal Stimulus? Evidence from Aid to State and Local Governments," NBER Working Papers 30168, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Robert Bernhardt & Stefania D'Amico & Santiago I. Sordo Palacios, 2021. "The Impact of Covid-19 Related Policy Responses on Municipal Debt Markets," Working Paper Series WP-2021-14, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    11. Tran, Nhu & Uzmanoglu, Cihan, 2022. "COVID-19, lockdowns, and the municipal bond market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    12. Bordo, Michael D. & Duca, John V., 2023. "How the new fed municipal bond facility capped municipal-treasury yield spreads in the Covid-19 recession," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Baridhi Malakar, 2024. "Essays on Responsible and Sustainable Finance," Papers 2406.12995, arXiv.org.
    2. Ivanov, Ivan T. & Zimmermann, Tom & Heinrich, Nathan W., 2022. "Limits of disclosure regulation in the municipal bond market," CFR Working Papers 22-05, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    3. Dario Cestau & Burton Hollifield & Dan Li & Norman Schürhoff, 2019. "Municipal Bond Markets," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 11(1), pages 65-84, December.
    4. Gao, Pengjie & Lee, Chang & Murphy, Dermot, 2022. "Good for your fiscal health? The effect of the affordable care act on healthcare borrowing costs," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 464-488.
    5. Butler, Alexander W. & Yi, Hanyi, 2022. "Aging and public financing costs: Evidence from U.S. municipal bond markets," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    6. Huixin Bi & W. Blake Marsh, 2020. "Flight to Liquidity or Safety? Recent Evidence from the Municipal Bond Market," Research Working Paper RWP 20-19, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    7. Thomas Luke Spreen & Ed Gerrish, 2022. "Taxes and tax‐exempt bonds: A literature review," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 767-808, September.
    8. Tran, Nhu & Uzmanoglu, Cihan, 2023. "Reprint of: COVID-19, lockdowns, and the municipal bond market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    9. Gao, Pengjie & Lee, Chang & Murphy, Dermot, 2020. "Financing dies in darkness? The impact of newspaper closures on public finance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(2), pages 445-467.
    10. Tran, Nhu & Uzmanoglu, Cihan, 2022. "COVID-19, lockdowns, and the municipal bond market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    11. Lu, Runjing & Ye, Zihan, 2023. "Roe v. Rates: Reproductive Healthcare and Public Financing Costs," SocArXiv 7t5jz, Center for Open Science.
    12. Farrell, Michael & Murphy, Dermot & Painter, Marcus & Zhang, Guangli, 2023. "The complexity yield puzzle: A textual analysis of municipal bond disclosures," Working Papers 338, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    13. Jess N. Cornaggia & Kimberly J. Cornaggia & Ryan D. Israelsen, 2020. "Where the Heart Is: Information Production and the Home Bias," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(12), pages 5532-5557, December.
    14. Cornaggia, Kimberly & Hund, John & Nguyen, Giang, 2022. "Investor attention and municipal bond returns," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    15. Ivanov, Ivan T. & Zimmermann, Tom, 2024. "The “Privatization” of municipal debt," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 237(C).
    16. Darko B. Vukovic & Carlos J. Rincon & Moinak Maiti, 2021. "Price distortions and municipal bonds premiums: evidence from Switzerland," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 7(1), pages 1-21, December.
    17. Stephanie F. Cheng & Christine Cuny & Hao Xue, 2023. "Disclosure and Competition for Capital," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(7), pages 4312-4330, July.
    18. Bourdeau-Brien, Michael & Kryzanowski, Lawrence, 2019. "Municipal financing costs following disasters," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 48-64.
    19. Friewald, Nils & Jankowitsch, Rainer & Subrahmanyam, Marti G., 2014. "To disclose or not to disclose: Transparency and liquidity in the structured product market," CFS Working Paper Series 461, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    20. Baridhi Malakar, 2024. "Fiduciary Duty in the Municipal Bonds Market," Papers 2406.15197, arXiv.org.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    municipal debt; state and local governments; COVID-19; Federal Reserve lending facilities;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • H74 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Borrowing

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fednsr:93156. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Gabriella Bucciarelli (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbnyus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.