• A key takeaway from our 2021 survey results is that there is not a clear-cut, or leading issue influencing the municipal bond market right now.
• The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic was named by only 47% of those surveyed as one of the most important issues/ trends influencing the municipal bond market in our December 2021 survey of 150 municipal bond credit analysts. Last year, in April 2020, 92% of analysts indicated COVID-19 as a top-five issue or trend.
• There is also a much wider range of issues or trends that analysts believe are influencing the municipal market.
  Public pensions (32%) was a key trend for analysts before COVID-19, this year it dropped to the fifth most important.
• Municipal analysts are closely divided about the appropriateness of the amount of fiscal policy that was focused on public finance in 2020 and 2021.
• Opinions about both state and local government credit quality mostly strengthened in 2021 compared to results from our 2020 survey.
• A little over half of analysts are satisfied in some way with municipal bond market disclosure.
• Most analysts do not think state and local governments are prepared for climate change or cyber attacks.
• Analyst opinions’ about how the rating agencies handled COVID-19 is mostly favorable.
• We also saw that analyst opinions’ overall about the rating agencies have improved across the board in the results of our 2021 analyst survey.

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