Special Briefing - War, Inflation, and the Impact on the Economy and State and Local Budgets

The Iran war and resulting surge in oil and gas prices are raising risks for the U.S of stagflation or even worse. Join our panel of experts as we discuss how these clouds may impact the nation’s economy and, especially, the finances of state and local governments just as many are putting finishing touches on their budgets for fiscal 2027.

While state tax revenues continued to rise in 2025, they are barely keeping up with inflation, and rising expenditures are leaving many states with billions of dollars in budgetary gaps that need to be closed. Their delicate fiscal balancing act may prove more difficult if the current climate grows more unsettled as 2026, a year that may see a shift in control of Congress as well 36 gubernatorial elections.

Speakers include Natalie Cohen, President and Founder, National Municipal Research; Julia Coronado, President and Founder, MacroPolicy Perspectives LLC; Kim Norton, Mayor, Rochester, MN; Brian Sigritz, Director of State Fiscal Studies, National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO); and Mark Zandi, Chief Economist, Moody's Analytics. 

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-eight 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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Natalie Cohen is the President and founder of National Municipal Research, a consulting and research company focused on U.S. state and local government finance. She blogs about these topics at The Public Purse.

A seasoned analyst, published writer and speaker, Natalie is often quoted in the Bond Buyer, Barron’s, Forbes, Route Fifty, and Bloomberg. She started her career at New York City OMB, worked at a rating agency, several insurers and is known for risk analysis and work on municipal bond defaults. She most recently spent eight years building and branding sell-side municipal research at Wells Fargo Securities. She is a frequent speaker at industry events and has given training sessions to various trade associations. She was awarded the “Lifetime Achievement” award by Smith’s Research and Gradings and the “Women Trailblazers” award from the Bond Buyer.

She has an MPA from New York University's Wagner School of Public Service and a BA from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. She has been a member of the Government Accounting Standards Advisory Council, a former Board member and co-chair of the education committee of the National Federation of Municipal Analysts. She served two terms on the Government Finance Officers Association standing budget committee and is currently on the Committee on Retirement Benefits Administration. She is on the Board of Directors of Build America Mutual, and currently chairs the Audit Committee. She recently joined the Milken Institute Public Finance Council.

Julia Coronado is the President and Founder of MacroPolicy Perspectives LLC. She founded MPP because she believes independent research can provide the most objective and relevant analysis to inform decision making in an uncertain world. Julia is a Clinical Associate Professor of Finance at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. She has more than a decade of experience as a financial market economist including serving as Chief Economist for Graham Capital Management and BNP Paribas, and as a Senior Economist at Barclays Capital. After receiving her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin, Julia worked for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington D.C. for eight years where she regularly briefed the Board and contributed to the FOMC forecasts. 

Julia has published a number of scholarly articles on issues related to pension finances and market valuations, social security, retirement saving adequacy and behavior, the frontier of private and public data collection, digital currency and monetary policy. Julia has represented the US at OECD meetings on financial market issues and has testified before the US Congress on Social Security reform and Central Bank Digital Currencies. She is a member of the Economic Advisory Panel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Economic Studies Council at the Brookings Institution and is former President of the National Association of Business Economists. Julia is also on the Board of Directors of Robert Half International and Dynex Capital and serves on the Advisory Boards of the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Pension Research Council at the Wharton School and the Cleveland Fed’s Center for Inflation Research. Julia is a regular commentator in financial media, including CNBC, Bloomberg, Marketplace, and the Wall Street Journal.    

Kim Norton became the first woman Mayor of Rochester, Minnesota when she was elected in November of 2018 and took office on January 1, 2019.  She was recently re-elected as Mayor for another four-year term. Mayor Kim Norton earned a Bush Fellowship, which allowed her to complete a master’s degree at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs focused on leadership and energy policy. This work allowed her to investigate communities recognized for their sustainability and livability.

Prior to her fellowship, Mayor Norton served in the Minnesota House of Representatives, representing District 25B, consisting mostly of the northern portion of Rochester in Olmsted County in the southeastern part of the state. During her 10 years as a legislator, she introduced many pieces of significant legislation including the Destination Medical Center (DMC) economic development project aimed at positioning Rochester as a premier location for health care. Before serving on the state legislature, Mayor Norton served 8 years, including one as board chair of the Rochester Public School Board.

In addition to the Mayor’s solid and long history of public service and leadership, she has a record of asking tough questions, seeking out and listening to people with differing opinions, and working with the community to build bridges toward finding smart, fair solutions.

Mayor Norton recently completed an Executive Certificate In Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School and has attended the Rockwood Leadership Institute. She continues to serve on many local and state nonprofit boards and has a number of leadership roles in state and national municipal government organizations (NLC, USCM, and MIP) Kim is a member of the Greater Rochester Rotary.

Brian Sigritz is the Director of State Fiscal Studies for the National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO) in Washington, D.C. Within NASBO, his responsibilities include tracking and analyzing tax and revenue trends, as well as handling NASBO activities related to transportation, capital budgeting, emergency management, housing, and pensions. He also monitors the fiscal health of the states and edits and produces the State Expenditure Report annually.

Prior to coming to NASBO, Sigritz worked as a legislative aide in the Ohio Senate and the Ohio House of Representatives, where he served as the caucus staff representative on the Human Services and Aging Committee. He has also served as the legislative liaison to the Mayor of Dayton, Ohio. In addition, Sigritz has authored articles on state fiscal conditions, has been quoted in a number of publications, and has appeared on several television programs.

Sigritz graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from St. Bonaventure University, and received his Master of Public Administration degree from George Washington University. He also studied sociology and history while attending Oxford University.

Mark Zandi is the chief economist of Moody’s, where he directs economic research. Moody’s is a leading provider of economic research, data and analytical tools. Zandi was a co-founder of Economy.com, which Moody’s purchased in 2005. He is on the board of directors of MGIC, the nation’s largest private mortgage insurance company; is the lead director of Policy Map, a data visualization company; and is on the board of the Coleridge Institute, a non-profit that facilitates the use of data across federal, state and local governments. An influential source of economic analysis for businesses, journalists and the public, Zandi frequently testifies before Congress. He is the author of Paying the Price: Ending the Great Recession and Beginning a New American Century, which assesses the monetary and fiscal policy response to the Great Recession. His other book, Financial Shock: A 360º Look at the Subprime Mortgage Implosion, and How to Avoid the Next Financial Crisis, has been described by the New York Times as the “clearest guide” to the financial crisis. 

Zandi earned his BS from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, both in economics.