Senior Leadership
Peter Bluestone
Associate Director, Center for State and Local Finance
Bluestone serves as the primary contact for the Center for State and Local Finance research.
He is the associate director of the Public Finance Research Cluster’s domestic programs. His research interests include urban economics, static and dynamic economic impact modeling, and state and local fiscal policy. His work includes modeling state and local impacts of policy changes and economic development using various economic models, including IMPLAN and Regional Economics Models Incorporated (REMI). Bluestone has served on the technical advisory committee for the Atlanta Regional Commission. He received his doctorate in economics from Georgia State University.
Paul Benson
Interim Director, Public Finance Research Cluster (FRC, CSLF, ICePP)
Paul focuses on research and training for three collaborative centers: the International Center for Public Policy (ICePP), the Center for State and Local Finance and the Fiscal Research Center.
His experience includes over 20 years in various roles at ICePP. He is an operations and management professional with experience in overseeing a wide spectrum of multimillion-dollar economic technical assistance and training projects in developing countries spanning six regions (Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean Islands, and the Commonwealth of Independent States). Clients include the Asian Development Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and various foreign governments.