Special Briefing: America's Hot Growth States

Western and southern states including Idaho and Florida were among those growing the fastest from the eve of the pandemic in 2019 through 2022. But there were some surprises as well, with Delaware, Maine, and New Jersey also joining the Census Bureau’s hot growth list. While the ability of many Americans to move to low-tax states and work from home played a large role in the population shift, other factors may have been at play as well. Meanwhile, rapid population expansion will pose challenges in many of these states as they cope with enlarging school systems, updating infrastructure, and preparing communities for the impact of extreme weather conditions. Our expert panel will explore these issues and what they may portend for state and local finances.

Our panel of experts will include Alex Adams, Idaho budget director; Thomas Doe, president, Municipal Market Analytics, Inc.; and Torsten Slok, chief economist, Apollo Global Management.

Moderated by William Glasgall, Volcker Alliance senior director, public finance and Susan Wachter, co-director of the Penn Institute for Urban Research, this briefing is the fiftieth 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 Century Foundation, the Volcker Alliance, and members of the Penn IUR Advisory Board.

Recordings of the entire Special Briefings series are available on the Volcker Alliance website: SPECIAL BRIEFING SERIES ARCHIVE.

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Speakers

Alex Adams is the budget and regulatory director for Governor Brad Little (R-Idaho). He served as chairman of the Governor’s Coronavirus Financial Advisory Committee and is the state’s Infrastructure Coordinator for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Adams is a graduate of the University of Toledo and Johns Hopkins University.

Mr. Tom Doe is President of Municipal Market Analytics, Inc. (MMA) which acquired Municipal Market Advisors in 2014. Mr. Doe founded and served as the CEO of Municipal Market Advisors, the leading independent research firm in the municipal industry, from its inception in 1995.

Mr. Doe contribution to the municipal industry has been extensive as an analyst, strategist and visionary of the industry’s future.  His perspective has been sought after by the leading organizations and institutions and his independence, and that of his firm, has resulted in appearances before Congress and financial regulators to help inform them of the dynamics, issues and challenges in the municipal market and financing public infrastructure.  Most memorably, on January 20, 2011, Mr. Doe forcefully represented the industry in a CNBC interview to accurately define market credit risks in response to Meredith Whitney’s alarmist municipal default projection.

Mr. Doe is also lead analyst on MMA’s monthly Municipal Advisor publication which began in 1995, and the firm’s Strategist report. He also contributes to the Insight product.

Between 2002 and 2005, Mr. Doe served a 3-year term as a public member on the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB), the regulatory entity of the municipal securities industry.

Prior to founding MMA, Mr. Doe served as an analyst and manager at Municipal Market Data, Inc. from 1984 to its successful sale to the Thomson Reuters Corporation in 1994.

Mr. Doe received his undergraduate degree from Colgate University and a Master’s from Harvard University.

Torsten Slok is chief economist at Apollo Global Management’s executive office in New York. Prior to joining the firm in August 2020, he worked for 15 years on the sell-side, where his team was top-ranked by Institutional Investor in fixed income and equities for ten years, including No. 1 in 2019. Previously he worked at the OECD in Paris, in the Money and Finance Division and the Structural Policy Analysis Division. Before joining the OECD he worked for four years at the IMF in the division responsible for writing the World Economic Outlook and the division responsible for China, Hong Kong, and Mongolia.

Torsten studied at University of Copenhagen and Princeton University. He frequently appears in the media (CNBC, Bloomberg, WSJ, NYT, FT), and has published numerous journal articles and reviews on economics and policy analysis, including in the Journal of International Economics, Journal of International Money and Finance, and The Econometric Journal.