Encyclopedia of Municipal Bonds: A Reference Guide to Market Events, Structures, Dynamics, and Investment Knowledge

Introduction

Welcome to MuniLand.

If I didn’t coin the term, I know I was one of its early adopters, featuring a map of the place in the first issue of a short-lived fortnightly I edited called Grant’s Municipal Bond Observer, in 1994. The idea behind “MuniLand”—and I refer to the term, not specifically the map—was a simple one: Here was a market that was particular and specific to an almost absurd degree. Calling it MuniLand was the usual attempt to bring order out of chaos. I used the word when attempting to explain the municipal market to those steeped—as most people are—in the culture of equities. I wanted them to, as the poet says, suspend disbelief. They were entering a new world, as strange and idiosyncratic as any uncharted island nation. ...