Christian Hilber

Christian Hilber is Professor of Economic Geography. He is an Associate of the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP). Christian is also a member of the Academic Panel of the What Works Centre.

Christian holds a Ph.D. in Economics (1998) and an MSc in Business and Economics (1994) from the University of Basel, Switzerland. Prior to joining the LSE in 2003, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (1999-2002) and an Economist at Fannie Mae (2002-2003).

Christian’s research concerns urban economics, real estate, housing and local public finance, and political economy. The core focus of his current research is on issues relating to housing and land supply, land use regulation, homeownership, property price determination, agglomeration economies, and social capital. He has published in journals such as Review of Economics and Statistics, Economic Journal, Journal of Public Economics and Journal of Urban Economics.

He currently serves as an Associate Editor of Regional Science and Urban Economics and of the Journal of Regional Science, and as a member of the Editorial Board of Journal of Housing Economics. He is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Public Finance Review. He served as a Member of the Board of Directors of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association (AREUEA) between 2015 and 2017. He is a Fellow of the Weimer School of Advanced Studies in Real Estate and Land Economics. He has served as a consultant to the H.M. Treasury and gave evidence to the National Audit Office, the H.M. Treasury Select Committee, and the House of Lords Select Committee.

His work has been quoted in the Economist, 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. Christian has won numerous prizes for his research, teaching, and services to the research community (refereeing).

Expertise Details

• Urban and real estate economics; housing and land markets with focus on homeownership; house price capitalization; land and housing supply; land use regulations and property price dynamics

Expertise

• Land use planning; central government grants; fiscal decentralization; help to buy;homeownership subsidies; homeownership; house price capitalization; house prices; housing cycles; housing policies; housing supply; housing transfer taxes (stamp duty); land supply;local public finance; mortgage interest deduction; property taxes; real estate cycles;regulatory constraints; supply constraints; town centre first