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Our results suggest that investors could help close part of this gap by aligning their municipal bond investments with conservation actions, generating positive returns while restoring biodiversity.

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These findings matter beyond bats. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework identifies a $700 billion annual biodiversity funding gap.

We use the quasi-random spread of White-nose Syndrome as a natural experiment to show that bat population declines, which weaken natural pest-control services provided to farms, increase muni bond spreads in affected rural counties by about 11.5 basis points & decrease property-tax revenue by 16%.

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The fiscal impact of biodiversity loss and a pathway for conservation finance

Very happy that my work with Dale Manning and Eli Fenichel on the fiscal impact of biodiversity loss and a pathway for conservation finance is out in Science today. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

science.org

Profit-seeking investors could align their muncipal bond investments with conservation actions

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Link to the paper: www.anya-nakhmurina.com/s/Public_Not...

anya-nakhmurina.com

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Consistent with this, cities with access to county notice websites issued significantly more commercial zoning permits after the reform than cities that continued newspaper publication.

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Planning and zoning meetings are particularly consequential forums where residents raise concerns about proposed construction; when citizens are less aware of upcoming decisions, opposition to new development declines.

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We find no evidence that citizens transitioned to finding notices on government websites instead of newspapers. Web traffic to county public notice sites showed no discernible increase. Instead, public meeting participation declined.

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Local governments with immediate website access reduced newspaper notice publication substantially after the reform, with the steepest declines in categories most likely to prompt citizen engagement: public hearing announcements, planning and zoning notices, and ordinance proposals.

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Using over 150,000 notices from more than 2,100 Florida local governments, we exploit variation in whether counties had public notice websites ready when the law took effect.

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As 14 states introduced similar legislation in 2025 alone, the question of whether the publication channel matters for democratic participation is more important than ever. \We find that it does.

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When Governments Stop Publishing Notices in Newspapers, Does Anyone Notice? - ProMarket

When governments stop publishing notices in newspapers, does anyone notice? With Kimmie Munevar and Delphine Samuels, we study Florida's 2023 public notice law, the first modern law allowing municipalities to post notices on county websites instead of newspapers. www.promarket.org/2026/03/06/w...

promarket.org

In new research providing the first systematic evidence on public notices, Kimberlyn Munevar, Anya Nakhmurina, and Delphine Samuels examine how Florida's 2023 law allowing local governments to stop pu...

Bottom line: Partisanship doesn't just move spreads. It changes how financial information gets interpreted in the muni bond market. It also has consequences for public investment.

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How do we pin this down? We focus on cities that never switch parties. So when alignment changes, it's because a new governor took office, not because the city changed. City fixed effects absorb any time-invariant differences between D and R cities. (See the paper for details).

In terms of real effects, aligned cities invest less in costly hazard mitigation projects, consistent with expecting the state to share the burden.

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In other words, the same red flag gets read differently depending on who's in the governor's mansion.

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When a city fails to release its annual financial report, investors penalize it with higher spreads. But that penalty is significantly attenuated when the city is aligned. Same story for adverse Single Audit findings: penalties are markedly reduced for aligned cities.

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But here's what we think is striking: Partisan alignment shapes how investors process accounting information from cities.

Is this just expectations, or do aligned cities really get more help? On average, after a credit downgrade, aligned cities receive ~$56 more per capita in state aid than misaligned ones.

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The evidence lines up with this story: - The effect is bigger for riskier bonds - Bigger for more powerful governors - Bigger in states with "proactive" muni bankruptcy regimes - Bigger for cities that fiscally depend on the state

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Why? We argue investors expect governors to be more likely to bail out same-party cities in fiscal distress. And less likely to help opposition-led ones.

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Bond spreads start shifting months before gubernatorial elections, tracking candidacy announcements and early polls.

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Cities that share the governor's party face ~9 basis points lower borrowing costs (a 24% reduction in spreads). That's a meaningful difference in a market that finances public safety, utilities, and infrastructure across America.

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To study this, we hand-collected political affiliations for officials in 1,045 U.S. cities across 45 states from 2005–2019 and matched them to the municipal bond market.

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Municipal bond investors demand a premium from cities governed by a different party than the governor. They also process financial information from those cities differently.

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Excited to see (w/ Ramona Dagostino) printed in JAR! TLDR: In an era of rising polarization, partisanship isn't just about policy disagreements. When cities and governors are on opposite sides of the partisan divide, it costs those cities. 🧵 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...