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Dan Garrett

@danggarret.bsky.social
845 followers 908 following 118 posts

economist thinking about taxes and public debt | co-organizer for the virtual municipal finance workshop | ap in finance at the wharton school www.danggarrett.com www.muni-workshop.com

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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Since the end of academic twitter, I've reentered LinkedIn and there are a surprising amount of folks sharing conference calls, papers, etc., that makes it helpful. There's also a lot of hilarious business nonsense and the algorithm is awful... but nothing is perfect.
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Anya Nakhmurina @annut.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
📣 Call for Papers: The Municipal Conference is back, and this year it’s going to New Orleans. After two editions at Yale, Stephanie Cheng and I are hosting the 2027 Yale–Tulane Municipal Research Conference. 📅 April 16, 2027 📝 Submissions due: Feb 12, 2027 🔗 Submit: lnkd.in/gT57imFV
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
That's probably because it's a great thread.
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Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham @paulgp.com · 10/09/2026
New post on AI in (economics) writing paulgp.substack.com/p/how-do-we-...
paulgp.substack.com
How do we know if writing is AI?
Some initial analyses of AI’s impact on economics writing
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Really nice interview and quotes, Chris! Thanks for sharing.
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
I can see today’s xkcd.com becoming a classic that I will cite frequently.
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
This is a bit scary for me personally as my wife is pregnant and at our last OB appt the doc talked about how she's never seen a patient with measles before this summer and now it's common and it can lead to a lot of complications. (we are vaccinated, but I'd still feel better without the outbreak)
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Just west of Philly, there is a large Measles outbreak ongoing and the first two deaths were reported this morning. These are the first measles-associated deaths in the state as long as I've been alive.
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Really nice to stumble across this while putting together my syllabus day slides.
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Fat cat Friday!!
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Susanna Berkouwer @sberkouwer.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Subsidies for clean cookstoves can abate carbon dioxide at only $7 per ton of CO2. We account for issues like imperfect additionality, stove breakage rates, non-usage or low usage by some buyers, and others. Read my article with @joshtdean.bsky.social in Climate Change Economics: lnkd.in/gw8hr9Mu
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Daron Acemoglu @dacemoglumit.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
My new book #WhatHappenedToLiberalDemocracy is out on August 11. Here is a brief message about my motivation for writing this book and its central thesis. Pre-order links are available here: shapingwork.mit.edu/what-happene.... I hope you will join me in the discussion.
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Note that June was very clear they aren’t making statements about the patterns they document being nefarious or strategic as an agency problem. It seemed to me that Lauren was saying those political implications could be important and worthy of future research.
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Lauren Larsen (Brookings) discusses and highlights that these are novel descriptive facts. But what she really zooms in on is the political implications: local politicians don’t want to spend a bunch of time and political capital on projects that might fail. Better for focus on sure things.
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Next up, June Huang (UT-Dallas) talk about voter referenda for municipal bonds. This is a fascinating paper we also had at the virtual muni finance workshop this spring. One of the punchlines: municipalities go far out of their way to avoid holding referenda
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Really interesting Q&A, I’m unconvinced the academic and practitioner views are converging in a way I understand… I’d wager that the ready valuation of call options is something that could be valued by both constituencies.
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Nikolai also notes these tender refundings were a short term phenomenon and are already going away. Says this is more about working around TCJA 2017 than something fundamental about a lack of education to issuers.
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Nikolai Sklaroff (SFPUC and GFOA) discusses from the perspective of an issuer and says there is a lot of nuance that issuers are dealing with. Focus on “practicality” and says tender refundings are not a first choice. Also dislikes lognormal assumption on interest rates in option valuation.
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Here’s an example if it’s legible. Tender refunding transaction where savings were only 57% of the lost option value even if you ignore transaction costs.
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Basic argument: tender offers to refinance bonds early before the call option paying 2-4 points over market rates is a bad way to hedge interest rate risk. Munis claim to get “savings” in cash by exercising early, but they fail to report the loss in option value by early exercise.
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
It wouldn’t be a Brookings muni conference without Andy Kalotay (Kalotay Associates) here to tell us about the valuation and exercise of call options. 5% coupon bonds callable at 10 years are extremely common munis, but they are much more expensive than people realize because of option value…
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Emily Hamilton @ebwhamilton.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Thanks Dan! One thing that came up is the wide open research questions on the relationship between zoning decisions and municipal finance. I think even the basic issue of what do different types of construction mean for property tax revenues across localities is horribly understudied.
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Muni and other fixed income ETFs often don’t have an active AP, and shorting bonds (especially munis for tax reasons) is hard which makes market making costly. So NAV vs market price misalignment is common. How should we tell which is more right and which should adjust?
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Simon Wu (MSRB) is discussing the paper. Simon wrote a short note on ETF NAV deviations back around the start of COVID but notes they didn’t understand why things unfolded as they did.
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Back from lunch! Yu He (UNL) is kicking off the afternoon with a paper about muni ETFs and their outcomes during COVID. Paper suggests big success: most selling pressure stayed in the ETF layer and didn’t spill over into the rest of the market.
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Tom Heinemann (MH Advisors) talks about how mixed income development using townhomes, Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) rentals, and manufactured homes can revitalize communities. Says local bureaucracy makes this process very costly even when you are following the written law.
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Biggest example from Emily: Houston, TX, lowers minimum lot sizes a whole lot (5,000 to 1,400 square feet if I listened well) and this led to a massive increase in housing on those new smaller lot sizes. Suggests this is also reflected in lower rents.
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
@ebwhamilton.bsky.social is up next and speaks to local success stories in certain cities. Talks about DC and Seattle allowing 2-3x more housing development than peer cities and this making housing more affordable Mentions Arlington, VA, as a prime example of successful transit oriented development
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Harkening back to the pandemic, Aaron says we need to “flatten the curve” of house price increases so that incomes can catch up. Administration doesn’t want to tank house prices.
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Aaron Hedlund talks about how CEA has seen housing and affordability as big issues. Says he broadly agrees with Michael that housing is a major problem and has been showcased in recent CEA reports. Zeros in on housing supply: we are building a lot less homes per person than in the last century
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Michael Eriksen kicks off the discussion: housing affordability is a real problem. Rent rises are large, homelessness is at the highest point on record. The share of income going to rent has gotten large, even in the middle of the country. Argues 94% increase all-in home purchase cost 2019-2026
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
First panel discussion on housing affordability with speakers Michael Eriksen (Purdue University), @ebwhamilton.bsky.social (Mercatus Center), Aaron Hedlund (Council of Economic Advisers), and Tom Heinemann (MH Advisors) Zoning! Financing! Local control! Transit! Can we solve affordability?
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Discussion is by Mark Schmidt (Morgan Stanley) who immediately highlights the elephant in the room is Separately Managed Account (SMAs) that are already larger than mutual funds, may have different (less) fragility. Agrees these correlations between munis and equities can be important and changing
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
The most interesting, and maybe contentious, piece of the paper ties these well identified financial wedges at the bond level to aggregate investment. (The response of local investment to bond financing cost literature jumping point is Adelino et al. (2017))
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Basic idea: in months with very low S&P returns, muni bonds have lower returns and correlation between muni and equity returns temporarily increases Paper focuses on bonds held by “fragile” mutual funds with flows sensitive to equities. These bonds wind up carrying higher yields
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Next paper! Viet-Dung Doan (HKBU) is telling us about “The Fragility Tax” and integration on risks in equity and municipal bond markets
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
The paper has a nice example of what smithereening looks like in the wild:
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Discussant is Brad Wendt (Charles River Associates). Characterizes paper as separating rents from real financing costs. Some disagreements with the paper: -retail selling is laborious (compensation for real costs) -retail trades plentiful, economic size small. Do rents matter economically?
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
A new definition: “smithereened” bonds are those with easily identified large trades in the primary market that are immediately broken into smaller, prearranged trades in secondary market. Dougal et al. paper argues these trades have much higher markups for intermediaries, suggest market power
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
It’s Day #1 for f the 15th Brookings Municipal finance conference!!! I’ll be sharing papers and brief thoughts here, but livestream and papers are at www.brookings.edu/events/15th-... Starting now, Casey Dougal (FSU) is going to tell us about “smithereening”
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
It's almost Brookings Muni Finance Conference time again!! I'm planning to do another live tweeting for the next two days of as much as I can handle, but there is a livestream for those who'd like to observe the conversation directly: www.brookings.edu/events/15th-...
brookings.edu
15th annual Municipal Finance Conference | Brookings
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Upjohn Institute @upjohninstitute.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Our annual award recognizing the best PhD dissertation on employment-related issues is still taking submissions! All academic disciplines are welcome, as long as it has a major employment and policy focus. The deadline is July 20th. Learn more: buff.ly/T0rqi6j #econsky
buff.ly
Dissertation Award | Upjohn Institute
The W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research is now accepting submissions for its annual award recognizing the best PhD dissertation on employment-related issues. The Institute has sponsored…
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David Wessel @davidmwessel.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Here's what Janet Yellen said today about lessons from the Powelll years at the Fed www.brookings.edu/articles/rem...
brookings.edu
Remarks by Janet L. Yellen at "The Powell years at the Fed: A retrospective" | Brookings
Janet Yellen's closing remarks at the Hutchins Center event examining lessons learned from the Jerome Powell years at the Federal Reserve.
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
Caveat, I've only seen this work with older elementary+, not kindergarten. Maybe paper snowflakes are a bit too advanced.
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
I like games about production functions. For example, have students work together to cut out paper snowflakes but allocate scissors badly. It's fun to learn how capital and labor can sometimes be complementary and that there are diminishing marginal returns once you have more scissors than people!
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Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
A great thread on the evidence regarding human capital vs. signaling explanations of the return to higher education.
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
The Thaddeus Stevens appreciators around this site might like to know there’s a new museum opening in the building that was his old law office in Lancaster, PA, this weekend.
Thaddeus Stevens & Lydia Hamilton Smith Center for History and democracy block party announcement for their museum’s grand opening.
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Hanging out at the NJ Senate today and security confiscated the metal spoon I had in my bag from breakfast
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Dan Garrett @danggarret.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
Is ~33% to ~27% flat? I think this is distorted a bit by the scale of working from home during COVID, but a 6pp swing does not seem economically small
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Owen Davis @odavis.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
A happy update: My job market paper is now accepted at the Journal of Labor Economics. Since I never did a proper thread on it, here goes. (Disclaimer: The views expressed in this paper are solely my own and do not reflect those of my employer, NYC IBO.)
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