5th Annual Municipal Finance Conference
On July 12, 2016, the Rosenberg Institute of Global Finance at Brandeis International Business School, Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, and the Brookings Institution’s Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy hosted the 5th annual Municipal Finance Conference at Brookings. The conference brought together academics, practitioners, issuers and regulators to discuss recent research on municipal markets and municipal finance.
ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS
Daniel Bergstresser is Associate Professor of Finance at the Brandeis International Business School. Bergstresser’s research focuses on municipal finance and on the impact of taxation, regulation, and market structure on financial markets. This research has been published in the Journal of Law and Economics, the Journal of Financial Economics, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Financial Studies, and Journal of Public Economics, and has been widely cited in both the academic and business press. He earned a Ph.D. in Economics at MIT, and earned an A.B. at Stanford. In 2006 and 2007, he worked for the investment manager Barclays Global Investors, serving in London as Head of European Credit Research. Prior to graduate school, he worked for the Federal Reserve Board in Washington D.C.
Richard Ryffel is a senior lecturer at Washington University’s Olin Business School. During his 30-year career in investment banking and asset management, Ryffel advised colleges and universities, hospitals, cities, states, airports, school districts, and corporations on financings and capital structure, and led hundreds of financings in both the taxable and tax-exempt markets. Mr. Ryffel joined Washington University full-time in 2015 after having worked at IBM Corporation, A.G. Edwards (now Wells Fargo Advisors), Bank of America, Edward Jones, and J.P. Morgan. He consults and writes in the areas of municipal finance and endowment management and governance.
Louise Sheiner is a senior fellow in Economic Studies and policy director for the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy. She had served as an economist with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System since 1993, most recently as the senior economist in the Fiscal Analysis Section for the Research and Statistics Division. (At the 2013 municipal finance conference, Sheiner and Byron Lutz at the Fed presented their work on state and local retiree health obligations.) She also has served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury (1996), and served as Senior Staff Economist for the Council of Economic Advisers (1995-96). Before joining the Fed, Sheiner was an economist at the Joint Committee on Taxation.
David Wessel is director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, which provides independent, non-partisan analysis of fiscal and monetary policy issues in order to further public understanding and to improve the quality and effectiveness of those policies. He joined Brookings in December 2013 after 30 years on the staff of The Wall Street Journal where, most recently, he was economics editor and wrote the weekly Capital column. He is a contributing correspondent to The Wall Street Journal, appears frequently on NPR’s Morning Edition and tweets often at @davidmwessel.
advisory committee
David Abel, William Blair & Company
Tim Coffin, Breckinridge Capital Advisors
Karl Dean, Boston University
George Friedlander
Allen Garman, Maryland Transportation Authority
Tracy Gordon, Urban Institute
Nikki Griffith, Department of Finance of Howard County, MD
Andrew Kalotay, Kalotay Associates
Brian Knight, Brown University
Byron Lutz, Federal Reserve Board of Governors
Peter Orr, Intuitive Analytics
Kim Reuben, Urban Institute
Daniel Shoag, Harvard University
Bryan Sullivan, State of Delaware
Stephen Winterstein, Wilmington Trust
Clint Zweifel, State Treasurer of Missouri
Agenda
Session 1: The changing municipal capital market
Moderator: Richard Ryffel (Olin School of Business, Washington University in St. Louis)
Changing Patterns in Household Ownership of Municipal Debt: Evidence from 1989-2013
Daniel Bergstresser (Rosenberg Institute of Global Finance at Brandeis International Business School) & Randolph Cohen (MIT)
Discussant: Natalie Cohen (Wells Fargo)
Municipal Borrowing Costs and State Policies for Distressed Municipalities
Pengjie Gao (Notre Dame), Dermot Murphy (University of Illinois-Chicago), & Chang Lee (University of Illinois-Chicago)
Discussant: Robert Doty (AGFS)
Municipal Finance Structure and Chapter 9 Creditor Priorities
Juliet Moringiello (Widener University Law School)
Discussant: Bart Hildreth (Georgia State University)
Richard Ryffel
Professor of Finance Practice - Olin School of Business, Washington University in St. Louis
Daniel Bergstresser
Associate Professor of Finance - Rosenberg Institute of Global Finance, Brandeis International Business School
Natalie Cohen
President - National Municipal Research
Robert Doty
President - AGFS
Bart Hildreth
Professor, Center for State and Local Finance, Department of Public Management and Policy in Atlanta - Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University
Juliet Moringiello
Professor of Business Law - Widener University Commonwealth Law School
Dermot Murphy
Assistant Professor of Finance - University of Illinois-Chicago
Session Materials
- Paper: "Changing Patterns in Household Ownership of Municipal Debt: Evidence from 1989-2013"
- Dan Bergstresser's slides
- Paper: "Municipal Borrowing Costs and State Policies for Distressed Municipalities"
- Dermot Murphy's slides
- Paper: "Municipal Finance Structure and Chapter 9 Creditor Priorities"
- Bart Hildreth's slides
From this Session
Changing Patterns in Household Ownership of Municipal Debt: Evidence from 1989-2013
Session 2: Breakout
Track 1: Issues in capital markets and credit
Moderator: Dan Bergstresser (Brandeis International Business School)
Credit Cluster and Contagion Risk Related to Distressed Municipalities
Richard A. Ciccarone (Merritt Research Services)
Discussant: Sharon Kioko (University of Washington)
Don’t Waste a Free Lunch: Managing the Advance Refunding Option
Andrew Kalotay (Kalotay Associates) & Lori Raineri (Government Financial Strategies, Inc.)
Discussant: David Abel (William Blair & Company)
From NIC to TIC to RAY: Calculating True Lifetime Cost of Capital for Municipal Borrowers
Peter Orr (Intuitive Analytics) & Martin J. Luby (DePaul University)
Discussant: Winthrop Smith (Win Analytics)
Daniel Bergstresser
Associate Professor of Finance - Rosenberg Institute of Global Finance, Brandeis International Business School
David Abel
Managing Director - Columbia Capital Management LLC
Richard Ciccarone
President & CEO - Merritt Research Services
Andy Kalotay
President - Kalotay Associates
Sharon Kioko
Associate Professor of Public Administration - Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy & Governance at University of Washington
Peter Orr
CFA - Intuitive Analytics
Winthrop Smith
President & Founder - Win Analytics LLC
Session Materials
- Paper: "Credit Cluster and Contagion Risk Related to Distressed Municipalities"
- Richard Ciccarone's slides
- Sharon Kioko's slides
- Paper: "Don’t Waste a Free Lunch: Managing the Advance Refunding Option"
- Andy Kalotay's slides
- David Abel's slides
- Paper: "From NIC to TIC to RAY: Calculating True Lifetime Cost of Capital for Municipal Borrowers"
- Peter Orr's slides
- Win Smith's slides
Track 2: Issues in state and local economics
Moderator: Bradley Wendt (Charles River Associates)
Term Limits and Municipal Borrowing Costs
Alex Abakah & Simi Kedia (Rutgers Business School)
Discussant: John Hallacy (Assured Guaranty)
Why Has Regional Income Convergence in the U.S. Declined?
Peter Ganong & Daniel Shoag (Harvard)
Discussant: Chris Mier (Loop Capital)
State Strategies for Detecting Fiscal Distress in Local Governments
Adrienne Lu, Matthew Cook, Stephen Fehr, Mary Murphy, & Daniel Newman (Pew Charitable Trusts)
Discussant: Gail Sussman (Moodys Investors Service)
Alex Abakah
PhD Candidate in Finance - Rutgers Business School
John Hallacy
Managing Director - Assured Guaranty
Adrienne Lu
Senior Associate, State and Local Fiscal Health - Pew Charitable Trusts
Chris Mier
Chief Strategist & Managing Director, Analytical Services Division - Loop Capital
Gail Sussman
Managing Director, US Public Finance - Moodys Investors Service
From this Session
Term Limits and Municipal Borrowing Costs
Session 3: Public pensions
Moderator: Louise Sheiner (Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at Brookings)
Pensions & Other Post-Employment Benefits (OPEB)
Alicia Munnell & JP Aubry (Boston College)
Discussant: Clint Zweifel (Missouri State Treasurer)
Louise Sheiner
The Robert S. Kerr Senior Fellow - Economic Studies
Policy Director - The Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy
Jean-Pierre Aubry
Associate Director of State and Local Research, Center for Retirement Research - Boston College
Alicia Munnell
Director, Center for Retirement Research and Peter F. Drucker Professor of Management Sciences - Boston College
From this Session
Keynote Address
David Wessel
Director - The Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy
Senior Fellow - Economic Studies
The Hon. Alejandro García Padilla
Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico
Session Materials
From this Session
Keynote address by Alejandro García Padilla
Panel: The muni market in the post-Detroit and post-Puerto Rico era
David Wessel
Director - The Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy
Senior Fellow - Economic Studies
The Hon. Alejandro García Padilla
Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico
Natalie Cohen
President - National Municipal Research
Judge Gerald E. Rosen
Former Chief Judge - United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan
James Spiotto
Managing Director - Chapman Strategic Advisors
Ben Watkins
Director - Florida Division of Bond Finance
From this Session
Panel: The muni market in the post-Detroit and post-Puerto Rico era
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