We will collect audited financial and socioeconomic data for a large sample of local governments between 2008 and 2016 to create a fiscal scoring system for cities and counties based on our previous work, work done by Pew and the leading academics. City and county scores will be reported on a...

Yields on sovereign and municipal bonds are largely determined by perceptions of default risk. The traditional providers of default risk assessments are the credit rating agencies, which have of late suffered damaged reputations. The author, a former Senior Director at Moody’s Analytics,...

In the aftermath of the 2007-08 global financial crisis, regulators and policy makers recognized the importance of making bond ratings publicly available. Although rating agencies have made some data available, obtaining this information in bulk can be difficult or impossible. At some times, the...

Ten years after the Securities and Exchange Commission mandated the conversion of corporate financial statements to machine-readable formats, there is still no analogous mandate for state and local government Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs). We explore the challenges and benefits...

After achieving peak revenue of $1.5 billion in 2007, the municipal bond insurance business collapsed in the wake of the financial crisis. More recently, the industry has started to recover, with three market participants seeking to write new policies. Our study asks whether municipal bond...

Puerto Rico s heavy public-sector debt burden is the unintended consequence of a series of policy decisions extending back to the US takeover of the island in 1898. Rather than placing Puerto Rico on a path to statehood, Congress imposed a series of unique governing structures on the island....

La deuda excesiva que enfrenta el sector público de Puerto Rico es el resultado involuntario de una serie de decisiones de política pública hechas a partir del 1898 cuando los Estados Unidos tomó posesión de la isla. En lugar de encaminar a Puerto Rico hacia la estadidad, el Congreso de los...

In recent decades, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has assumed increasing premarket authority for drugs and devices. Given how the FDA s regulatory stance has inhibited breakthroughs in the development of medical products, it appears that the agency will stand in the way of emerging...

After remaining relatively stable between 2004 and 2010, Medicaid spending as a proportion of overall state expenditure has been rising in the current decade. This trend may be expected to continue in the states participating in Medicaid expansion as the federal share of spending on newly...

The high and rising cost of US medical care is partially attributable to legally enforced rigidities in the health care system. By relaxing restrictions, the government can unlock competitive forces that drive prices down and empower individuals to avoid unnecessary, expensive medical services....