Dr. Ryan Leary recently coauthored an article on local municipal market concentration in Puerto Rico.

In the article, the authors discuss how the US federal estate tax imposes a substantial tax burden on the US assets of Puerto Rican estates but that local assets are completely sheltered from it. The authors provide evidence that Puerto Ricans successfully sheltered from the federal estate tax by holding local municipal debt, which – among other factors– may have worsened the economic impact of the country’s debt crisis in 2013.