U.S. Local Debt Declines for First Time Since 1996, Fed Says
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U.S. state and local governments reduced their debts last year for the first time since 1996 as political aversion to borrowing cut supply of municipal bonds and fueled a market rally.
Such debt dropped by almost 2 percent last year, the Federal Reserve said today in a quarterly report. The decline helped shrink the market for U.S. municipal securities to $3.74 trillion at the end of December from $3.8 trillion a year earlier, the figures show.