Issued also as thesis, Columbia University. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Syracuse University, 2008. / "Publication number: AAT 3323095."

Chapter 1 examines the effect of property-type diversification in equity real estate investment trusts (REITs) from 1995 to 2006. A strong positive relationship is documented between property-type diversification and return on assets, return on equity, and Tobin’s Q. The diversification benefit comes from both the ability to select better performing property types in “hot” markets and the limited exposure to poorly performing property types in “cold” markets. Diversified REITs produce higher cash flows relative to equity as a result of a broader opportunity set; moreover, return on assets increases with the degree of diversification, which suggests significant shielding to property-type specific risk. Additionally, results indicate that diversified REITs operate and trade above their contemporaneous predicted values, which are calculated using imputed multipliers from specialized REITs. The evidence shows that the market is operating efficiently and has incorporated this information; diversified REITs Q ratios are significantly greater than specialized REITs. Chapter 2 uses a large sample of municipal bond closed-end funds to examine how tax liability affects seasonal trading. Optimal tax trading dictates that net tax liability be calculated after all trades. Investors’ net tax liability is held in a holding account of his or her choosing. This study investigates what happens when there is tax liability in excess of Safe Harbor, and tax holding accounts are liquidated to cover the payments. We find that there exists a pattern of negative returns and increased volume in the month of March that is unexplained by changes in yield. iii Chapter 3 examines the ex-dividend day effect for municipal bond closed-end. The proposed explanations for this phenomenon are tax effects, short-term trading and/or market microstructure effects. In this study I use a unique set of dividend distributions to provide additional evidence that ex-dividend behavior is related to taxation as well as short-term trading. The sample I use is comprised of dividends in nontaxable closed-end funds, which ordinarily are not subject to Federal Income Tax. However, there is an occasional distribution that is subject to capital gains or ordinary income tax. This provides a unique environment in which to study the ex-dividend price behavior of a fund while eliminating the need for comparisons across funds.

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / The development of public education in the United States is largely dependent upon the attitudes of the public and its desire to provide revenue for the improvement and maintenance of the schools. Since the citizens of a community are both the owners and the consumers of public education, they are fully responsible for keeping their local school system moving forward with the times. Providing revenue from tax levies and other sources for the schools is a key factor in citizen support of public education. Through legislation and bond issues, the public is able to fulfill its responsibility of financing local educational institutions. The bond issue is the most common means of raising revenue for public school expenditure. However, the percentage of public school bond proposals that have been recently defeated at the polls has been alarmingly high, more than 30 percent in 1963. Many educational observers believe that certain conditions and elements are present repeatedly in school bond campaigns that fail, but they disagree on how some of those factors actually affect the outcome of the election. There are contradictions and inconsistencies concerning the use of pupils and teachers in the campaign, the size of the voter turnout, lay citizen leadership, treatment of the opposition, and other areas. This lack of agreement among educational authorities is very evident in the educational literature and is not of substantial assistance in the planning of a strong school bond campaign. A school official or interested citizen who is attempting to develop a campaign program would soon be mystified when faced with the contradictions and inconsistencies that appear in the educational publications. In an effort to clarify the direction in which these significant factors do operate, a research project elicited responses concerning those factors from 188 public school superintendents who had participated in a public school bond campaign in 1963. Based on the results of the research survey and additional supplemental research, 14 common guidelines were established for use by school officials and interested lay citizens. By following these guidelines, they can adapt to a single campaign the techniques and information that have been successfully used by others on a large scale. The guidelines include conducting pre-campaign research, timing the campaign for an October election climax, obtaining unanimous endorsement from the local Board of Education, soliciting lay citizen participation and leadership, welcoming faculty support, discouraging pupil activity, attempting to win over or neutralize potential opposition prior to the campaign, treating the remaining opposition fairly, concentrating campaign toward potential "yes" voters, stressing the benefits not the cost of the bond without using threats, engaging in campaign activities involving maximum personal contact, sending speakers to civic organizations, and maintaining a continuous year-around public relations program. / 2031-01-01

Thesis. 1977. M.C.P.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Bibliography : leaves 170-172. / by George W. Leung. / M.C.P.

Thesis. 1977. M.C.P.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Bibliography : leaves 333-337. / M.C.P.

In the first chapter, I find counties more likely to be affected by climate change pay more in underwriting fees and initial yields to issue long-term municipal bonds compared to counties unlikely to be affected by climate change. This difference disappears when comparing short-term municipal bonds, implying the market prices climate change risks for long-term securities only. Higher issuance costs for climate risk counties are driven by bonds with lower credit ratings. Investor attention is a driving factor, as the difference in issuance costs on bonds issued by climate and non-climate affected counties increases after the release of the 2006 Stern Review on climate change. In the second chapter, I document the investment value of alternative data and examine how market participants react to the data's dissemination. Using satellite images of parking lots of US retailers, I find a long-short trading strategy based on growth in car count earns an alpha of 1.6% per month. I then show that, after the release of satellite data, hedge fund trades are more sensitive to growth in car count and are more profitable in affected stocks. Conversely, individual investor demand becomes less sensitive to growth in car count and less profitable in affected stocks. Further, the increase in information asymmetry between investors due to the availability of alternative data leads to a decrease in the liquidity of affected firms.

Issued also as thesis, Columbia University. / Includes bibliographical references.

This dissertation deals with one aspect of how city officials respond to community needs. It is about the decisions of governments on how to secure the financial resources needed to fulfill their obligations to the public. The study explores the factors that influence officials' decisions to issue debt. It is different from other municipal bond studies in that it focuses on the behavior of bond issuers rather than bond investors and the rating agencies.

<p>This dissertation comprises two essays on over-the-counter (OTC) markets, covering both the primary and secondary markets for municipal bonds.</p> <p>In the first chapter, I explore a novel channel through which exchange-traded funds (ETFs) improve pre-trade price transparency and thereby retail investors' bargaining power in OTC markets. ETFs are required to daily disclose their full holdings, often along with their constituents’ end-of-day prices, which are good timely references for investors to negotiate with broker-dealers, particularly when the securities have not traded recently. I find that ETF-held bonds have significantly lower retail markups than those of bonds not held by ETFs. This effect cannot be explained by selection or ETFs' own trading activity but is driven by the daily disclosures by ETFs holding the bonds. During 2010--2021, retail investors saved over $200 million when trading ETF-held bonds. There is also a spillover effect to the primary market---when municipalities have outstanding ETF-held bonds, their new issues have lower yields and smaller price dispersion.</p> <p>In the second chapter, I both theoretically and empirically document a non-monotonic relation between local municipal bond mutual funds, or informed investors, and underpricing in the municipal bond market. Empirically speaking, offering yields are higher in states that have open-end municipal bond funds, and with larger aggregate fund size. However, holding local fund size constant, yields decrease in the number of funds. Such relations hold when local funds' primary market participation is instrumented with the similarities in characteristics of new issues and existing bonds in their portfolios. I further confirm my empirical findings with a security underpricing model that incorporates the imperfect signals available to informed investors. Despite facing higher borrowing costs, issuers benefit from local funds' certification resulting in both institutional and retail investors' higher demand in the primary market.</p>