municipal bond rating services - value of - Municipal bond ratings and rating services have been severely criticized from time to time, yet they survive and prosper. Therefore, they must be useful. How are the services of value to issuers? to underwriters and dealers? to investors?

municipal bond rating services - value of and criticisms - What are the main criticisms that have been levelled against municipal bond rating services? What are the advantages and disadvnatages of replacing the present services with one done by a Federal agency?

refunding and municipal bonds/tax exempt bonds - The single most important reason for the large volume of new issues of tax-exempt bonds during the 1990s has been the refunding of outstanding bonds. What facts does an issuer need and which variables must the issuer (or its financial advisor) forecast, in order to decide whether a proposed refunding is the right course of action at a given time?

negotiated basis vs competing bid - Some of the empirical research suggests that the net interest cost to issuers is likely to be somewhat higher when a new issue is sold on a negotiated basis (the negotiations being with a single team of underwriters) than on the basis of competing bids from a number of underwriting syndicates. If this is often true, under what circumstances would it be reasonabl...

federal income tax exemption - escape from progressivity for the rich?? - Why is it argued that the federal income tax exemption of interest on state-local debt is an escape from progressivity for the rich? Please explain the arguements for and against this critisism.