Special Briefing on Boosting Infrastructure Investment for Global Cities: Lessons from the $4 Trillion U.S. Municipal Bond Market

America’s state and local governments finance more than three-quarters of the nation’s public infrastructure needs, while in many other countries, most capital investment funds flow from central to local governments and borrowing from banks and capital markets may be limited. This practice is in sharp contrast to the U.S., where states and municipalities are expected to borrow at least $600 billion in 2026, mostly backed by locally generated tax and fee revenues, in a $4 trillion nationwide municipal securities market that dates back to New York City’s first muni bond sale in 1812.

Join our Special Briefing as co-hosts William Glasgall and Susan Wachter discuss with global public finance experts how global cities and other subnational governments may be able to adopt attributes of America’s muni market structure and create more of a credit-driven culture to drive private investment in badly needed public infrastructure to meet the demands of population growth and climate change.

Panelists include: Emily S. Brock, Director, Federal Liaison Center, Government Finance Officers Association; Alexander Chilton, Managing Director, Morgan Stanley Fixed Income & Commodities; Sean Dougherty, Senior Advisor at Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and leader of the Secretariat of the Network on Fiscal Relations across Levels of Government; Pietrangelo DiBiase, OECD policy analyst; and Paul Smoke, Director at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation (CIC) and Professor of Public Finance and Planning, NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.

Moderated by William Glasgall, Volcker Alliance Public Finance Adviser and Penn IUR Fellow, and Susan Wachter, Co-Director of the Penn Institute for Urban Research and Wharton Professor of Real Estate and Professor of Finance, this briefing is the sixty-ninth in a series of sixty-minute online conversations featuring experts from the national research networks of the Volcker Alliance and Penn IUR, along with other leading academics, economists, and federal, state, and local leaders. 

Special Briefings are made possible by funding from The Travelers Institute, the Volcker Alliance, and members of the Penn IUR Advisory Board. Recordings of the entire Special Briefings series are available on the Volcker Alliance or Penn IUR websites.

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Emily Brock is the Director of GFOA’s Federal Liaison Center. Emily leads coalition and advocacy efforts of the Public Finance Network in Washington DC. Her advocacy includes anticipating and responding to federal legislative and regulatory activities that impact the finance functions of state and local governments and public sector entities including tax reform, municipal securities disclosure and public pension and benefit issues. Emily also serves as staff on GFOA’s Debt Committee, working with committee members to develop best practices that promote sound financial practices for local, state and provincial governments. Prior to joining GFOA, Emily was a commercial bank relationship manager at a large national bank, serving as the sole bank liaison for government and university clients. 

Alexander Chilton is a Managing Director and Head of Municipal Securities at Morgan Stanley, based in New York. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) and is Chair of its Finance Committee. He also serves as a member of the Penn Institute for Urban Research advisory board.

Prior to joining Morgan Stanley in 2015, Alexander was a Partner at Whitehaven Asset Management working on an investment fund in the municipal market. He began his career at Citigroup in the Municipal Bond Department. He holds bachelor’s degrees in both economics and engineering, and a master’s degree in engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

Pietrangelo De Biase is an OECD official who has worked with the OECD Network on Fiscal Relations and the Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs on topics related to public finances, fiscal decentralization, and sovereign debt management. He previously held several positions at Brazil’s National Treasury, including financial analyst, advisor to the secretary, head of unit, and head of division. He holds a master’s degree in policy analysis and engineering from Delft University of Technology and a bachelor’s degree from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Sean Dougherty is a Senior Advisor at the OECD in Paris, where he has advised governments for over 20 years. He leads the Secretariat of the Network on Fiscal Relations across Levels of Government and is currently supporting efforts to apply AI in public finance. He has published widely on fiscal federalism, productivity growth, and economic development, including editing five recent books and numerous articles on emerging economies – most notably China and India. An American citizen, he holds a Ph.D. from the Paris School of Economics, a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and a bachelor of science from MIT.

Paul Smoke is the Acting Director at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation (CIC).

Professor Smoke, a globally recognized expert in applied public finance and governance with a particular focus on decentralization and intergovernmental relations, has a distinguished career spanning academia, policy, and advisory roles. His research and public service engagement centers on the design, strategic implementation, and assessment of institutional, fiscal, and governance reforms, particularly at the intergovernmental and subnational/urban levels.

Professor Smoke has collaborated extensively with international development agencies, financial institutions, and government ministries worldwide. As a Professor of Public Finance and Planning at NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, he teaches graduate courses on institutions and governance, decentralized development planning, subnational finance, and international development assistance. His expertise and leadership will guide CIC during this pivotal transition.