Vincent Munley began his academic career at Lehigh in 1980, after serving for two years as a staff economist for the President's Council on Wage and Price Stability. He served for ten years as a member of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources' Air and Water Quality Technical Advisory Committee. He was a visiting scholar at the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations in Washington, D.C., and a Fulbright Scholar at the National University of Ireland, Galway.
His university service activities include 1993 – 1999 Economics Department Chairperson, 2002 - 2007 Lehigh University’s (initial) Ombudsperson, and 2010 – 2017 University Deputy Provost for Faculty Affairs.
His research is directed at the empirical study of public policy issues, particularly fiscal federalism. The results have been published in journals that include the American Economic Review, the Economic and Social Review, Economic Inquiry, Education Finance and Policy, the Journal of Education Finance, the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, the Journal of Legal Studies, the Journal of Leisure Research, the Journal of Public Economics, Land Economics, Public Choice, Public Finance/Finances Publiques, Publius, and the Southern Economic Journal.