The Integrity Effect on Municipal Bonds

We study whether the integrity of local governments has effects on municipal bond coupon rate. We conjecture that higher integrity is associated with lower bond coupon rate. One of proxies for the integrity is the integrity index which Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission of Korea announces annually. The high degree of the index implies high integrity. We also use the number of crimes by local government officials as the integrity measure. Empirical results show that Increasing a unit of integrity is equivalent to decreasing 0.34% of municipal coupon bond. The sensitivity of the integrity to municipal bond coupon rate is stronger before 2007-2008 financial crisis, when the coupon rate was higher, than after the crisis. Overall, our results imply that local governments could save financing cost by improving the integrity of the governments.