Christian Hilber

Dr. Hilber's research focuses on urban and real estate economics (with a particular focus on housing, commercial real estate, and land markets), local public finance, and political economy. He is an expert on the economic impact of land use planning policies as well as various housing policies (such as homeownership subsidies), the supply side of housing markets, housing market dynamics, and the determinants and implications of homeownership. His work is mainly empirical and concentrates on the UK, the U.S. and Switzerland.

Dr. Hilber is the Director of the MSc Real Estate Economics and Finance at the LSE, an Associate of the Centre for Economic Performance, the Spatial Economics Research Centre and of the What Works Centre, a member of the Editorial Board of Regional Science and Urban Economics, and a member of the Board of Directors of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.

Dr. Hilber advised the HM Treasury on questions related to the economic impact of land use regulation and the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit on questions relating to housing affordability and sub-regional geography modelling feasibility. He also recently gave evidence on the British ‘Help to Buy’ scheme to the National Audit Office.

Dr. Hilber’s work is published (or forthcoming) in journals such as the Review of Economics and Statistics, Economic Journal, Journal of Urban Economics, Regional Science and Urban Economics, Regional Studies, Journal of Housing Economics, Brookings-Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs or Quantitative Marketing and Economics.

His publication on the impact of the U.S. mortgage interest deduction on homeownership decisions (joint with Tracy Turner) has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the Washington Post, among other outlets, and was used as evidence in Hearings before the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance and the U.S. Senate Budget Committee.