Competition and the Cost of Capital Revisited: Special Authorities and Underwriters in the Market for Tax-emempt Hospital Bonds / Alec Ian Gershberg, Michael Grossman, Fred Goldman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gershberg, Alec Ian.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Grossman, Michael.

Goldman, Fred.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w7356.

NBER working paper series no. w7356

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Competition and the Cost of Capital Revisited

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1999.

Summary:

We explore the effects of two kinds of competition on the cost of capital in the tax-exempt bond market: (1) competition amongst underwriters and (2) competition amongst issuers (most of which are quasi-public special authorities sanctioned by state governments). The first kind of competition--essentially, competitive versus negotiated bidding processes--has received considerable attention in the literature. The second kind of competition, the number of potential issuers available to a beneficiary of a bond issue, has received far less attention and is related to the level of decentralization of the market for issuing bonds. Studies of the effects of competition have often used small samples of bond issues--often in one or a few states and for one or a few years--to reach their conclusions. Using a national database covering fourteen years, we find that both kinds of competition lower interest rates, at least in the hospital sector.

Notes:

Print version record

September 1999.