One of the most important predictor variables in multistate studies of American municipal cash reserves is the state in which a municipality is located, and to date no research has explored why. In this paper, we show that two broad categories of variables can account for a large fraction of this puzzle. Average differences in financial variables and state-to-state institutional differences combine to absorb over 80% of the importance of state fixed effects, with financial variables mostly accounting for why cities in some states save less than the national average, and institutional variables doing a better job of accounting for why cities in some states save more than the national average.
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