Personal

A note for blog readers who want to know who’s writing. The academic homepage is the professional version. This page is the human one.

I live in Hays County, Texas — the same county the blog series is about.

I grew up in eastern North Carolina, went to UNC Wilmington for undergrad, and to UNC Chapel Hill for graduate school. I have attended or worked at public schools my entire life — kindergarten through twelfth grade in eastern North Carolina, undergraduate degree at UNC Wilmington, doctorate at UNC Chapel Hill, a postdoctoral fellowship at Arizona State University — and now serve on the faculty at Texas State. That through-line shapes how I think about public finance more than anything else does.

I study state and local public finance and economic development — particularly how local governments and financial institutions shape who benefits and who pays when shocks hit. The Hays County series on the blog is one application of those interests; the journal work is the broader, more rigorous version.

Outside of the work, I watch a lot of golf and college sports — men’s and women’s — any of which occasionally end up on the blog when one offers a clean empirical setting for a statistical question. The basketball loyalties (men’s and women’s both) are UNC Chapel Hill and UNC Wilmington; the football loyalty is now Texas State, which is genuinely good and getting better. I keep a list of books I am working through and a longer list of books I would like to be.

If you have read Southbound 35 and want to suggest a topic, push back on an angle, or flag a correction, the inbox is open: scottlangford@txstate.edu. I am also on X. For something more formal — office hours, address, professional bio — see the homepage.