Robert B. Ward is the deputy director of the Rockefeller Institute. He heads the Institute's State and Local Government Finance research, and its New York State studies. He has studied and written about New York State government for more than 25 years in his current position, as a newspaper reporter, as assistant to the chairman of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, and as director of research for The Public Policy Institute of New York State. He is author of New York State Government, the leading text in the field, which was published by the Institute in 2002 and revised in 2006. He has served as an independent fiscal policy adviser to three New York governors. His work on national issues relating to state finances includes leading the Institute’s research into gambling revenues for states, and several articles on fiscal sustainability for state and local governments. He is a graduate of Syracuse University.