Capital Gains Taxes, Agency Costs, and Closed-End Fund Discounts

Abstract

We test two hypotheses about the determinants of closed-end fund premia and discounts using a comprehensive sample of non-taxable and taxable funds for the period 1988 to 2002. We test whether fund premia reflect agency costs, and the potential tax liability associated with unrealized capital gains by examining changes in fund premia around the declaration day of large dividend and capital gain distributions. We provide further evidence on the effect of the tax liability from unrealized capital gains by examining changes in the premium around the ex-day of capital gain distributions. Our results lend support to both agency cost and the capital gains tax explanations for fund premia and discounts. We also find that the market prices of municipal bond funds (which pay tax-free dividends) are more sensitive to capital gains tax liabilities than are the prices of taxable funds, which is consistent with the existence of tax clienteles among closed-end fund investors.