I have been thinking this year will be a particularly rough year for economists seeking employment, and this new data tool from the AEA definitely shows that is the case with 1/3 less listings than the same time last year, basically matching COVID lows.

Happy Caturday from Big Gus and Archie who like to politely join me at the kitchen counter for an afternoon snack.

The basic idea: hurricane Sandy had a massive deleterious effect on property values in NYC for damaged properties, but property tax assessments adjust these values down for property taxes less, leading to increases in the taxable ratio (especially damaged properties ineligible for tax relief)

But wildfires cause more than just direct damage! Luis Lopez (UIC) presents “Up in Smoke: The Impact of Wildfire Pollution on Healthcare Municipal Finance” documenting that the smoke from wildfires is priced in the bonds of hospitals and nursing homes (more negative profitability services)

After congestion pricing, back to muni bonds. Woongchan Jeon presented “Pricing Climate Risks: Evidence from Wildfires and Municipal Bonds” arguing that wildfire risks are being increasingly price over time (following the Goldsmith-Pinkham et al. sea level rise paper)

Chaowang Ren just presented a new paper testing out a bunch of models for predicting municipal financial distress. There is some compelling evidence that certain machine learning methods can improve distress predictions.

Now time for the really fun stuff: muni transaction costs! Simon Wu of the MSRB describes how trade data show effective spreads declining dramatically over time (discussed by Brad Wendt). Lot of discussion about the pattern in the room. Many proposed reasons (ATS, SMAs, reporting, etc)

Next up, Louise Sheiner of Brookings argues that college educated workers in the state and local sector have had cash wage declines on average and benefits (pensions, healthcare, stability) have not offset this decline in “Do State and Local Governments Offer Competitive Compensation?”

Huaizhi Chen kicks the day off with “Assessing Assessors” arguing that local property tax assessors have a lot (maybe too much) flexibility in assigning assessments, local deficits predicting assessment changes over time, disjoint from market prices

The Brookings Municipal Finance Conference is today (available livestream: www.brookings.edu/events/14th-...) and the lineup of papers is excellent! I’m not much of a live tweeter but I’ll try to share a few highlights

56 miles with my dad for his 56th birthday (only 15 or so years after the fact)

It turns out that was a hard ride for both of us in this heat

Just a couple of proud American cats who do not recognize the authority of any king.

#nokingsonlycats

The Virtual Municipal Finance Workshop meets TOMORROW, 4/30, at 11am EDT!

Our presentations will be by Hala Moussawi (Stanford) and Renping Li (WUSTL) covering topics in municipal finance and taxation and competition.

Papers and Zoom link: www.muni-workshop.com

The Virtual Municipal Finance Workshop meets TOMORROW, 4/16, at 11am EDT!

Our presentations will be by Viral Acharya (NYU) and Tuomas Tomunen (Boston College) covering topics in municipal finance and the environment.

Papers and Zoom link: www.muni-workshop.com

The Virtual Municipal Finance Workshop meets TODAY, 4/2, at 11am EDT!

Our presentations will be by Ryan Israelsen (Michigan State University) and Kyle Zimmerschied (University of Missouri) covering topics in municipal finance and immigration.

Papers and Zoom link: muni-workshop.com

The Virtual Municipal Finance Workshop meets this Wednesday, 3/19, at 11am EST!

Our presentations will be by Federico Mainardi (University of Chicago) and Michael Varley (University of Kentucky) covering topics in municipal finance and the macroeconomy.

Papers and Zoom link: www.muni-workshop.com

The Virtual Municipal Finance Workshop meets this Wednesday, 3/5, at 11am EST!

Our presentations will be by Casey Dougal (FSU) and Bingkuan (Bryan) Cao (UNL) covering topics in stakeholder relationships in municipal finance.

Papers and Zoom link: www.muni-workshop.com

The Virtual Municipal Finance Workshop starts this Wednesday, 2/19, at 11am EST!

Our first presentations will be by Delphine Samuels (UChicago) and Gustavo Cortes (UFlorida) covering topics in information creation and distribution in municipal finance

Papers and Zoom link: www.muni-workshop.com

The Virtual Municipal Finance Workshop is BACK tomorrow at 11am ET!

Our first seminar for the semester will be Matthias Fleckenstein presenting "Do Municipal Bond Investors Pay a Convenience Premium to Avoid Taxes?" (joint with Francis Longstaff)

Paper+zoom: www.muni-workshop.com
#EconSky