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Contact: Jennifer A. Galloway, Chief Communications Officer
              (703) 797-6600
              jgalloway@msrb.org

MSRB ANNOUNCES ERIK SIRRI IS LEADING MARKET STRUCTURE AND TRADING STUDY

Alexandria , VA – The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) today announced that Erik R. Sirri, professor of finance at Babson College and former director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Division of Trading and Markets, is leading the MSRB’s study of the municipal securities market. The study, which the MSRB announced previously, will use municipal market trading data to examine transaction costs, price dispersion and other issues in the municipal bond market.

“Erik’s deep experience in trading activity and the capital markets as a whole will help the MSRB analyze whether pricing mechanisms and liquidity in the market could be improved with higher levels of pre-trade price transparency,” said MSRB Executive Director Lynnette Kelly Hotchkiss. “We are thrilled to be working with Erik and look forward to reviewing with our Board members initial findings from the study later this year.”

Sirri also previously served as the SEC’s chief economist, was an assistant professor at the Harvard Business School and served on the boards of securities exchanges, mutual funds and industry associations. He received a Ph.D. in finance from the University of California, Los Angeles.

In furtherance of its core mission to protect investors, municipal entities and the public interest, the MSRB promotes municipal market transparency and a fair and efficient market through the broad dissemination of post-trade municipal securities transaction data. The MSRB collects and disseminates to the market, for free, trade price data on an average 40,000 municipal securities transactions each day through its MSRB’s Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA) website.

Each year, the MSRB publishes a Fact Book containing analysis of municipal market trade and disclosure data. The MSRB’s 2010 Fact Book is now available.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) protects and strengthens the municipal bond market, enabling access to capital, economic growth, and societal progress in tens of thousands of communities across the country. The MSRB fulfills this mission by creating trust in our market through informed regulation of dealers and municipal advisors that protects investors, issuers and the public interest; building technology systems that power our market and provide transparency for issuers, institutions, and the investing public; and serving as the steward of market data that empowers better decisions and fuels innovation for the future. The MSRB is a self-regulatory organization governed by a board of directors that has a majority of public members, in addition to representatives of regulated entities. The MSRB is overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission and Congress.

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