Bill Testa is vice president and director of regional programs in the economic research department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Testa has broadly written in the areas of economic growth and development, the Midwest economy and state–local public finance. He directed a comprehensive long-term study and forecast of the Midwest economy, Assessing the Midwest Economy: Looking Back for the Future, and has fashioned a series of conferences on school reform. Testa currently serves as economics editor of the Chicago Fed Letter and on the editorial board of Economic Development Quarterly. Prior to joining the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in 1982, Testa was a visiting faculty member in the economics department at Tulane University in New Orleans and a graduate research fellow at the Academy for Contemporary Problems in Columbus, Ohio.