Reinforcing its status as a thought leader in the business world, Purdue University’s Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business is combining with three other groups to hold a two-day conference covering research on municipal finance and economic and fiscal issues affecting state and local governments.
The conference, scheduled for July 17-18 at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., will bring together academics, practitioners, and state and local government officials. In addition to the Daniels School, 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 International Business School, and the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.
Rich Ryffel, professor of practice and executive director of business leadership at the Daniels School, founded the conference 13 years ago with Dan Bergstresser, associate professor of finance from Brandeis.
“We wanted to address a gap between municipal capital markets practitioners and academic researchers,” Ryffel says. “After years in public investment banking, I realized that some issuers and their advisors weren’t always applying the latest in science-informed best practices. My thought was the municipal bond markets were so unique that a more nuanced, practitioner-informed approach to research might yield more valuable results.”
The Brookings Institution and the University of Chicago later joined as co-sponsors, and the scope was expanded to include broader policy research in addition to capital markets topics.
Conference organizers are seeking papers for the conference on a broad variety of topics related to state and local fiscal policy and public finance. Those topics can include, but are not limited to, the post-COVID economic environment for cities and other issuers, the evolution and regulation of the municipal bond market, the impact of federal spending legislation, all aspects of public infrastructure investment, and climate change.
Papers do not have to be original to the conference, but presenters will be required to attend in person. Deadline for proposals is March 1; click here to submit a proposal.
“We would like the research presented to inform the thinking of municipal bond issuers, fiscal managers, and policymakers. It’s important that cutting-edge research finds its way into decision making in order for our government agencies to be more efficient and more responsive to taxpayer needs,” Ryffel says.
