市政债券市场中的搜寻摩擦与产品设计
Search Frictions and Product Design in the Municipal Bond Market
Econometrica · 2025 · [{"name": "Giulia Brancaccio", "affiliation": ["Center for Economic and Policy Research", "New York University"]}, {"name": "Karam Kang", "affiliation": ["University of Wisconsin–Madison"]}]
中文摘要
本文以美国市政债券市场为背景，表明产品设计塑造了搜寻摩擦，而中介机构会利用这一渠道增加其租金。大多数债券由地方政府与其承销商通过协商设计，随后在分散化市场中交易，承销商通常也同时充当中介角色。利用各州限制政府官员利益冲突的监管规定差异，我们提供证据表明，承销商会从设计和交易复杂债券中获益，而这会加剧搜寻摩擦。有意思的是，更简单的债券未必有利于政府，因为债券复杂性为债务偿还提供了灵活性。受这些发现启发，我们构建并估计了一个债券发行与交易模型，以量化强制推行债券标准化政策的福利影响。
Abstract
This paper shows that product design shapes search frictions and that intermediaries leverage this channel to increase their rents in the context of the U.S. municipal bond market. The majority of bonds are designed via negotiation between a local government and its underwriter. They are then traded in a decentralized market, where the underwriter often also acts as an intermediary. Exploiting variations in state regulations that limit government officials' conflicts of interest, we provide evidence that the underwriter benefits from designing and trading complex bonds, which induces an increase in search frictions. Interestingly, a simpler bond may not necessarily benefit the government, as bond complexity affords flexibility in debt repayment. Motivated by these findings, we build and estimate a model of bond origination and trading to quantify the welfare implications of a policy mandating bond standardization.