Public sector accounting disclosure quality and municipal bond interest costs: The case of school district bonds

Prior research in public sector accounting suggests that disclosure quality can lower the interest costs of bond issues. Most of the literature in this field, however, use samples comprised predominantly of city and county bonds, without substantial consideration of other municipal bond issuers, such as school districts. Seeking to widen the scope of such research, this dissertation examines the role of accounting disclosure quality in reducing the interest costs on school district bonds. Furthermore, many of the control aspects employed by prior studies (e.g., state taxation, financial guarantees, callability, issuing frequency, and size effects) are also tested for their effects on interest costs. While the results provide empirical support for many of the hypothesized relationships between the control variables and interest costs, they provide only weak support for the disclosure quality-interest cost hypothesis. Instead, the findings indicate that underwriter types, not accounting factors, may contribute to interest cost savings.