2026 Call for Papers ｜About the Organizers｜Advisory Committee ｜Newsletter｜ Past Conferences｜Questions
2026 Call for Papers
We are seeking papers for our 15th annual Municipal Finance Conference, to be held in person Tuesday, July 21 and Wednesday, July 22, 2026 at Brookings in Washington, DC.
The Municipal Finance Conference brings together academics, practitioners, and state and local government officials to discuss recent research on municipal bond markets and fiscal and economic issues affecting state and local governments.
The conference is sponsored by the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution, the Rosenberg Institute of Global Finance at Brandeis School of Business and Economics, the Mitch Daniels School of Business at Purdue University, the Harris School of Public Policy at University of Chicago, and the LBJ School of Public Affairs at University of Texas at Austin. Materials from previous years’ conferences (including papers, videos, and more) can be found below.Â
- We are seeking proposals on a broad variety of topics in state and local fiscal policy and in muni capital markets, including but not limited to: the impact of technological change on muni bond trading, how changing federal tax and spending policy is affecting state and local fiscal conditions, what AI is doing to and for state and local governments and markets, the latest developments in financing public infrastructure, and climate change.
- We are particularly interested in connecting scholars with interests in muni capital markets with market participants (including those from the conference advisory committee) who can provide perspectives on institutional details and history and advice on data before papers are final. If you are an academic interested in connecting with market participants on a particular topic, please email—soon—a short preliminary proposal to Haowen Chen ([email protected]) and we will look for a good match.
- The conference will be primarily in person—there will be a livestream option for remote viewers, but all presenters will be required to attend in person in Washington, DC. Travel support will be available for one author per paper.
- Papers do not have to be original to this conference. We welcome papers that have been presented elsewhere or have recently been accepted for publication.
- Deadline for proposals is February 27, 2026. We plan to make selection decisions by April 15. Drafts of selected papers will be due by May 31. Final papers for conference presentation will be due by July 14.Â
Reach out to Haowen Chen ([email protected]) if you have any problems with the submission form or questions about the selection process in general.Â
About the Organizers
Daniel Bergstresser is Associate Professor of Finance at the Brandeis School of Business and Economics. 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 the 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 addition to his service at Brandeis, Bergstresser has also served as an Associate Professor at Harvard Business School, as Head of the European Credit Research group at Barclays Global Investors, and on the research staff of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
Martin Luby is director of the Center on Municipal Capital Markets and Associate Professor in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. His teaching and research broadly focuses on public finance with an emphasis in public financial management. Much of his research has focused on the municipal securities market and the use of debt finance by state and local governments. Luby has published on innovative government financial instruments, federal financing techniques, regulation of the municipal securities market and the role of financial intermediaries in state and local government financings. He has extensive banking, consultant and advisory experience with many state and local governments as well as the federal government. He is a fellow to the Lynn F. Anderson Professorship in Public Financial Management.Â
Justin Marlowe is a Research Professor at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. His research and teaching are focused on public financial management, and he has published four books – including the first open-access textbook on public financial management – and dozens of articles on public capital markets, infrastructure finance, government financial disclosure, and public-private private partnerships. Since 2017 he has served as Editor-in-Chief of Public Budgeting & Finance. He is active as an expert witness and has served on technical advisory bodies for several government, private, and non-profit organizations. Prior to academia he worked in local government in Michigan. He is a Certified Government Financial Manager and an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, and he holds a Ph.D. in political science and public administration from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Richard Ryffel is the Executive Director of Business Leadership and a Professor of Practice in the Mitch Daniels School of Business at Purdue University.  He is responsible for leading the Professor of Practice faculty and for outreach to the practice community across multiple functions at Daniels.  Prior to joining Daniels, he was a Professor of Finance Practice at Washington University in St. Louis. While in industry, Mr. 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. He previously worked at A.G. Edwards (now Wells Fargo Advisors), Bank of America, Edward Jones and J.P. Morgan.  With Professor Daniel Bergstresser of Brandeis University, he conceived and launched the Municipal Finance Conference in 2012.
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 appears frequently on NPR’s Morning Edition and on posts often on Bluesky at @davidmwessel.
Advisory Committee
- David Abel, Columbia Capital Management
- Jess Cornaggia, Pennsylvania State University
- Christine Cuny, New York University Stern School of Business
- Pepe Finn, Stern Brothers & Co.
- Mark Funkhouser, Funkhouser & Associates
- Allen Garman, Maryland Transportation Authority
- Daniel Garrett, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
- Tracy Gordon, Urban Institute
- Nikki Griffith, City of Virginia Beach
- Kent Hiteshew, Ernst & Young
- Ivan Ivanov, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
- Craig Johnson, O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University-Bloomington
- Andy Kalotay, Andrew Kalotay Associates
- Mark Kim, Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board
- William Kim, MuniPro
- Lauren Larson, Natcast
- Byron Lutz, Federal Reserve Board
- Colin MacNaught, BondLink
- Michael Nadol, Clay Street Perspectives, LLC
- Carol O’Cleireacain, School of International & Public Affairs, Columbia University
- Peter Orr, Intuitive Analytics
- Kim Rueben, National Tax Association
- Win Smith, Wells Fargo
- Erika Smull, Breckinridge Capital Advisors
- Sarah Snyder, Ramirez & Co., Inc.
- Bryan Sullivan, State of Delaware
- J. Ben Watkins, State of Florida
- Bradley Wendt, Charles River Associates
- Stephen Winterstein, ficc.ai
Past Conferences
See also: 2021 webinar – “The COVID-19 pandemic and state and local budgets: Past, present, and future“
Questions
Please direct any questions regarding conference registration, logistics, etc. to Stephanie Cencula ([email protected]) or Haowen Chen ([email protected])