Bond Indices for Cities, Counties, and School Districts
Created at the University of Chicago by the Harris School of Public Policy's Center for Municipal Finance. Powered by MBIS data.
Tracking Municipal Credit Sentiment at the Issuer Level
Most municipal bond indices track the market in broad strokes — by credit rating, maturity, or sector. The indices on this page do something different. Built by the Center for Municipal Finance at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy, they track general obligation bond prices for individual cities, counties, and school districts over time, offering a direct measure of market sentiment toward some of the largest municipal issuers in the country.
The indices are powered by MBIS pre-trade data. Because MBIS aggregates bids, offers, and trades from hundreds of dealers, the Center was able to build indices with sufficient depth and historical coverage to capture meaningful trends — from the sharp price dislocations during the onset of COVID-19 in spring 2020, through the recovery that followed, and into the rate-driven selloff of 2022. Reported trade data alone would not have provided the granularity needed for this kind of issuer-level analysis.
The result is a resource used by journalists, researchers, issuers, and investors alike. Data from these indices has been cited by Bloomberg and Crain's Chicago Business, among others.
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