Center on Municipal Capital Markets

Austin's bat bridge and Lady Bird Lake view

Center on Municipal Capital Markets

Developing greater understanding, expertise and skills in the financing of our nation's physical infrastructure

The Center on Municipal Capital Markets (CMCM) at The University of Texas At Austin is one of the only university-based centers focused exclusively on municipal capital markets. Developing greater understanding and expertise in the municipal capital markets is critical due to the substantial amount of resources governments at all levels require to address their sizable and growing infrastructure needs. 

Given the size of these capital needs, the Center on Municipal Capital Markets educational efforts are especially salient due to the increasing technical sophistication of the municipal capital markets and the lack of specialized training most municipal finance professionals receive in their graduate education training.

Our mission is to enhance the capital market expertise and knowledge of undergraduate and graduate students, emerging and seasoned state and local government finance professionals and the public at large. CMCM achieves this through graduate and continuing education programs, experiential training, research and technical reports, and public outreach.

Capital markets enable government entities to raise financial resources for projects including:

  • Building schools
  • Highways
  • Hospitals
  • Water
  • Wastewater
  • Energy Systems

CMCM addresses the critical need for specialized training and research in leveraging government resources for infrastructure development and maintenance, especially in light of recent federal initiatives aimed at revitalizing infrastructure after years of disinvestment.

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Contact us

Email: lbjcmcm@austin.utexas.edu 

 

downtown Austin viewing the capitol from a distance

Mark Kim

 

 

 

"I applaud CMCM’s dual mandate of teaching undergraduate and graduate students about the critical role of the municipal securities market in financing this nation’s public infrastructure, as well as empowering government finance professionals with a greater understanding of the capital markets through continuing education, training opportunities and academic research."  

 

-- Mark Kim, CEO of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board

Taylor Lewis

 

 

"The best decision I made as an LBJ student. The program's curriculum gave me broad exposure to the fundamentals of public finance while also allowing me to hone my knowledge in the more specialized areas of governmental accounting, financial statement analysis, and the municipal securities industry."

 

-- Taylor Lewis (MPAff '20)

 

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Austin's Pennybacker Bridge at twilight

What We Do

CMCM has formed fellowship partnerships with government entities, nonprofits, public finance bankers, financial consultants and the credit rating agencies, providing students with valuable real-world experience. 

Dean's Certificate in State and Local Finance

State and local governments in the United States are often the primary providers of public goods and services to citizens, funded through myriad government revenues often with the aid of financing from the capital markets. The increased demand for government services combined with the continued reluctance of the public to substantially provide greater resources have challenged these governments' finances. As a result, many state and local governments have turned to novel fiscal policies, emerging financial instruments and/or alternatives to public provision of their traditional activities. The changing nature in the way governments finance and provide their goods and services necessitates better financial acumen among both government finance professionals and private and nonprofit sector specialists that interact, assist and participate in government fiscal and financing activities.

The state and local finance profession has historically suffered a supply/demand problem. That is, there has consistently been a shortage of people with the requisite budgeting/finance/accounting skills to satisfy demand from public, private and non-profit employers. This supply/demand problem results in students who possess these skills to be highly marketable professionals. The jobs that require the skills acquired in this certificate program span all three sectors (public, private and nonprofit) and all three government levels (federal, state and local).

The Certificate in State and Local Finance is open to any degree-seeking graduate student at UT-Austin interested in government finance. It will be especially attractive to LBJ MPAff students as well as dual degree MPAff students enrolled in UT's business, community and regional planning, law and engineering schools. By completing this certificate program, all students will be able to:

  • Understand core public finance issues related to the way governments spend, raise and leverage taxpayer resources
  • Interpret and evaluate basic financial documents to begin assessing the financial condition of state and local governments
  • Evaluate the ways state and local governments access the capital markets to meet their infrastructure and operating budget demands
  • Create a specific project finance plan to address a government's capital or operating needs
  • Analyze how urban economies work and the impact of various policy interventions at the local level
  • Assess rationales for public sector policies and actions to promote local economic development

More:

The dam at Lady Bird Lake

News & Events

News


budget

When the Feds Hand You a “Light Envelope”: Exploring the Impact of the Federal Budget Sequester on the Build America Bond Program

June 18, 2025
This study estimates that historical, future, and hypothetical sequestration-related subsidy losses for Build America Bonds sold by entities in the State of Texas and City of Chicago may amount to hundreds of millions of dollars just for these governments. Public Administration Review Journal Article
abbot

Municipal Bonds Emerge Largely Unscathed from Texas Legislature

June 10, 2025
This year's Texas legislative session brought an onslaught of bills that would have greatly limited the ability of local governments and school districts to sell debt, but it ended with little change to the status quo. The Bond Buyer
lightning

Report from UT's LBJ School of Public Affairs Highlights Critical Reserve Needs for Emergency Services Districts

May 7, 2025
A new report from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin finds that Texas Emergency Services Districts (ESDs) should consider maintaining significantly higher financial reserves to protect emergency services from the growing threats of extreme weather, economic volatility and political change.
tax

Trump’s Next Fiscal Target? An Analysis of Tax Expenditures in the TCJA

April 30, 2025
It’s been hard to keep track of everything the administration has been up to recently, from tariffs to executive orders. While the possibility of tax law changes hasn’t been the focus of the media frenzy, it’s another policy that would have major implications. Public Budgeting & Finance News
tx flag

Texas Emergency Services Districts Financial Reserves Study

April 30, 2025
This report aims to begin developing a best-practices framework for Emergency Services Districts reserve sizing policy.
building

Amid D.C. Debate, Academic Policy Paper Highlights Tax Exemption

April 7, 2025
Public finance academics have waded into the Capitol Hill debate over tax-exempt municipal bonds, warning in a policy brief that cutting the exemption would hurt infrastructure investment in the U.S. and pressure local and state budgets. The Bond Buyer
highway

Report Released by UT Austin's LBJ School and U. Chicago's Harris School Guides Policymakers on Municipal Bond Tax Exemption Reforms

April 4, 2025
A new report from the LBJ School and the University of Chicago provides an evidence-based guide to the federal tax exemption on municipal bond interest.
road

Why Congress Should Save the Municipal Bond Tax Exemption

March 12, 2025
The municipal bond tax exemption, the bedrock of state and local infrastructure financing, is under unprecedented threat, and Congress must act now to safeguard our communities. The Dallas Morning News
image

An Essential Component of Any Policy Toolkit to Address Federal Budget Deficits: Tax Expenditure Reform

Jan. 21, 2025
The last half-century has been characterized by ongoing federal deficits as well as recurring government shutdowns, which have only accelerated in the last decade. We contend that Congress has been unable to exercise adequate control over both annual revenues and expenditures not merely due to political partisanship but because of something no less basic: inadequate budgetary and fiscal processes. One budgetary element important to the federal government's fiscal system involves tax expenditures. As a reform to move closer to budgetary balance, we propose in this commentary that Congress should severely scale-back, recharacterize, and regularly review “tax-expenditures.” Public Budgeting & Finance Journal Article.
Austin TX

University of Texas Launches Center on Muni Market

Nov. 15, 2024
The Center on Municipal Capital Markets (CMCM) will provide specialized training and research so that government entities can effectively leverage private capital for these public needs. Bloomberg Markets: The Close
bridge

Texas university center focuses on municipal capital markets

Nov. 6, 2024
The role of capital markets in financing infrastructure is the focus of a university-based center recently launched in Texas to train future public finance professionals and produce research. The Bond Buyer.
bloomberg muni market

University of Texas Launches New Center Focused on Muni Market

Oct. 29, 2024
The University of Texas at Austin is launching a new center dedicated to the municipal bond market, ahead of an anticipated boom in infrastructure investments. Dubbed the Center on Municipal Capital Markets, the new initiative will be housed under the institution’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. It’s part of a broader push by university president Jay Hartzell to address extreme weather as a result of climate change and the energy grid’s transition to renewable power. Bloomberg.
The Austin skyline in view of the bridge.

New training and research center to leverage private capital for public infrastructure launches at UT

Oct. 29, 2024
The new Center on Municipal Capital Markets (CMCM) will train graduate students and host programs to educate professionals about how to leverage markets to have sufficient funding for projects they are pursuing. The importance of leveraging government resources for infrastructure development and maintenance has grown as recent federal initiatives aim to revitalize infrastructure after years of disinvestment.

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Cars driving along a Texas highway at night

Who We Are

Marty Luby at an LBJ podium

Marty Luby at the BDA conference

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