Faculty Profile : Jun Peng

Jun Peng is an Assistant Professor of Public Administration and Policy at the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management. Professor Peng joined the School of Public Administration and Policy in the fall of 2000. He received his MPA and Ph.D. in public administration from the University at Albany, State University of New York, where he specialized in public financial management.

Professor Peng currently teaches in both the undergraduate and graduate public administration programs at Arizona. His three graduate courses cover all major aspects of financial management in the public and nonprofit sectors, such as budgeting, accounting, taxation, treasury management, debt management, endowment management, and pension management. These courses are aimed at training MPA students to be future public financial managers. So far many students that have taken his courses have found employment related to public finance in both the public and private sectors. They work for organizations such as Arizona and California state legislative budget offices and Moody’s Investors Service. In 2003, He was honored with the School’s Outstanding Teaching Award.

His research also focuses on public financial management. Specifically, he has studied state and local government debt and pension fund management. He is interested in how state and local governments can manage their assets and liabilities most efficiently and effectively to better serve the public, as they collectively have $2 trillion in debt and $2 trillion in pension fund assets. He is also interested in how state and local governments manage their budgets over business cycles. To date he has published articles in the Municipal Finance Journal, Public Budgeting and Finance, Journal of Economics and Finance, and Encyclopedia of Public Administration and Public Policy. His research studies have been used by public finance consulting groups when they advise local governments on how to structure their debt. Dr. Peng is also a frequent presenter at conferences on state and local government finance.

As for his hobbies, Dr. Peng is an avid tennis player. He also likes running and weight lifting. He loves classical and new age music.