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Arbitrage and the Savings Behavior of State Governments

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Gilbert E. Metcalf

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Abstract

The federal tax code creates strong incentives for tax arbitrage activity on the part of state governments. This arbitrage activity is illegal and previous research has typically assumed that the constraint against arbitrage activity is binding. This paper explicitly tests this proposition by considering whether financial asset holdings increase as the yield spread between taxable and tax exempt securities rises. Using a data set on 40 state governments over a 7 year period, I find that there is a significant response to changes in the yield spread. One implication of these results is that the Tax Reform Act of 1986 which made even greater efforts to curb arbitrage activity is likely to be ineffective.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 3017.

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Date of creation: Aug 1991
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:3017

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Edward M. Gramlich, 1978. "State and Local Budgets the Day after It Rained: Why Is the Surplus So High?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 9(1978-1), pages 191-216. [Downloadable!]
  2. James M. Poterba, 1986. "Explaining the Yield Spread between Taxable and Tax-exempt Bonds : The Role of Expected Tax Policy," NBER Chapters, in: Studies in State and Local Public Finance, pages 5-52 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
  3. Metcalfe, G.E., 1988. "Federal Tax Policy And Municipal Financial Behavior," Papers 29, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School - Discussion Paper.
  4. Engle, Robert F., 1984. "Wald, likelihood ratio, and Lagrange multiplier tests in econometrics," Handbook of Econometrics, in: Z. Griliches† & M. D. Intriligator (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 13, pages 775-826 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Hausman, Jerry A. & Taylor, William E., 1981. "A generalized specification test," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 239-245. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Roger H. Gordon & Joel B. Slemrod, 1986. "An Empirical Examination of Municipal Financial Policy," NBER Chapters, in: Studies in State and Local Public Finance, pages 53-82 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
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  1. Gilbert Metcalf, 1993. "Federal Taxation and the Supply of State Debt," NBER Working Papers 3255, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Rodolfo Apreda, 2003. "On the Extent of Arbitrage Constraints within Transaction Algebras (A non-standard approach)," CEMA Working Papers: Serie Documentos de Trabajo. 239, Universidad del CEMA. [Downloadable!]
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