Service Provision by State and Local Governments
Organized by Jeffrey Clemens and James M. Poterba
Supported by the Smith Richardson Foundation
January 28-29, 2027
Royal Sonesta Hotel, 40 Edwin H. Land Blvd.,Cambridge, MA
Thursday, January 28
8:30am
Breakfast
9:00am

School Board Capacity

Minseon Park, University of Michigan
Seth D. Zimmerman, Yale University and NBER
Barbara Biasi, Yale University and NBER
John D. Singleton, University of Rochester and NBER

Discussant:
Julie Berry Cullen, University of California, San Diego and NBER
10:00am

It's Not (Just) About the Money: Pay and the Value of Working Conditions in Teaching

Carolyn Tsao, Microsoft Research

Discussant:
Byron Lutz, Federal Reserve Board of Governors
11:00am
Break
11:30am

Should States Shut Colleges? Public Higher Education System Design in an Era of Declining Enrollment

Thomas Ahn, Naval Postgraduate School
Jacob L. Vigdor, University of Washington and NBER

Discussant:
Joshua Goodman, Boston University and NBER
12:30pm
Lunch
1:30pm

Price Variation and the Role of Market Power in School Food Procurement

Martin B. Hackmann, University of California, Los Angeles and NBER

Discussant:
Cailin R. Slattery, University of California, Berkeley
2:30pm

Local Government Resilience to Federal Tax Reform: Evidence from the SALT Deduction Cap

Federico Corredor, Georgia State University

Discussant:
Sara LaLumia, Williams College
3:30pm
Break
4:00pm

Cities without Suburbs? The Effects of Municipal Scale and Local Public Finance

Kaan Cankat, Princeton University
Allison E. Green, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

Discussant:
David R. Agrawal, University of California, Irvine
5:00pm
Adjourn
5:30pm
Dinner, Monteverdi Restaurant, Royal Sonesta Hotel
Friday, January 29
8:00am
Breakfast
8:30am

Beyond the Flypaper Effect: Crowding-In from Federal Investment in Public Transit

Arseniy Braslavskiy, University of Maryland, College Park

Discussant:
James R. Hines, University of Michigan and NBER
9:30am

Inconsistent Funding and Infrastructure Costs

Valentin Bolotnyy, Stanford University
Zachary Liscow, Yale University

Discussant:
Zane Kashner, University of California, Berkeley
10:30am
Break
11:00am

The Decision Window: How Budget Timing Shapes Fiscal Policy

Kerry Y. Siani, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jinyuan Zhang, University of California, Los Angeles

Discussant:
Kim Rueben, Kim Rueben Consulting
12:00pm

The Virginia Work Requirements Experiment

Timothy Layton, University of Virginia and NBER
Adam Leive, University of California, Berkeley and NBER
Adrianna McIntyre, Harvard University

Discussant:
Pauline Leung, Cornell University
1:00pm
Adjourn