Debt, Demographics, and the Future of U.S. Fiscal Sustainability

As the United States faces rising federal debt, it is also experiencing both a rapidly aging population and a falling birth rate, raising urgent questions about the long-term sustainability of the nation’s fiscal path. The Heller-Hurwicz Economics Institute’s Spring 2026 Roundtable will explore how demographic change, entitlement spending and macroeconomic forces are shaping the outlook for U.S. public finances.

Join us for an engaging discussion moderated by Julie Bunn with leading economists, Jesús Fernández‑Villaverde of the University of Pennsylvania and Hannes Malmberg of the University of Minnesota. Together, they will examine recent trends in the national debt, the fiscal pressures associated with an aging population and the policy challenges the United States may face in maintaining long-run fiscal sustainability.

The conversation will provide insights into the economic forces driving federal debt dynamics and consider what demographic projections imply for the future of taxation, government spending and fiscal policy in the United States.

Please join us after the roundtable for a reception and a poster session featuring research conducted by the 2025-2026 Heller-Hurwicz Undergraduate Research Assistant program. 

Our Speakers:

Jesús Fernández-Villaverde is the Howard Marks Presidential Professor of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, where he serves as the director of the Penn Initiative for the Study of Markets and co-director of the Business, Economic and Financial History Project. 

Dr. Fernández-Villaverde has been a visiting professor at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Oxford, and Cambridge and a visiting scholar at several Federal Reserve Banks, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of Spain. He is a member of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the Centre for Economic Policy Research, and a fellow of the Econometric Society. He is also a member of the editorial board of leading economic journals such as Econometrica and the International Economic Review.

Dr. Fernández-Villaverde is the author of several books and dozens of scientific articles written in Spanish and English. He has also been published by the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and The Hill, among others. He obtained his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota in 2001.

Hannes Malmberg is an assistant professor in the University of Minnesota's Department of Economics.

 He is a macroeconomist with a particular focus on long-run questions and the macroeconomics of economic development. He obtained his Ph.D. in economics from Stockholm University in 2017.

His current research focuses on input intensification in agriculture, the role of human capital and market integration in economic development, and the macroeconomic effects of population aging

Moderator:

Dr. Julie Bunn is executive director of the Minnesota Council on Economic Education, a position she has held since September 2018. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University and taught economics at Macalester College. 

Bunn served in the Minnesota state legislature from 2007 to 2011, where she authored legislation on health care reform, environmental protection and small business development. She began her career as a research economist at the U.S. Department of Labor and has advised political candidates and nonprofit organizations on policy and strategy.

She currently serves on the advisory board of the Heller-Hurwicz Economics Institute at the University of Minnesota.