Brookings awards prizes for conference papers

WASHINGTON – A paper by two New York University professors on the effect of transparency on debt costs won the capital prize at the sixth annual Brookings Municipal Finance Conference.

“When transparency pays: The moderating effect of reporting quality on changes in the cost of debt,” by Christine Cuny and Svenja Dube of NYU’s Stern School of Business, found stronger financial reporting quality by municipal issuers increases the likelihood of upgrades and minimizes downgrade risk.

Brookings awarded the state-local fiscal prizes – both pension related -- to Dan Shoag of Harvard Kennedy School and Jim Farrell of Florida Southern University for “Risky choices: simulating public pension funding stress with realistic shocks,” and to Don Boyd and Yimeng Yin of the State University of New York’s Rockefeller Institute of Government for “Investment risk-taking by public pension plans: potential consequences for pension funds, state and local governments, and stakeholders in government.”

The conference aims to bring together academics, practitioners, issuers and regulators to discuss research on the municipal markets and muni finance.

Brookings’ Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy partnered for the event with the Rosenberg Institute of Global Finance at Brandeis International Business School; the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis; and the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.