Senior Research Fellows
These distinguished scholars from top universities advise FIRE on key research priorities and strategy.
Robert C. Ellickson (Yale Law School)
Walter E. Meyer Professor Emeritus of Property and Urban Law
Professor Ellickson has published numerous articles in legal and public policy journals on topics such as land use and housing policy, land tenure systems, social norms, homelessness, and the organization of households, community associations, and cities. His books include Order Without Law: How Neighbors Settle Disputes (1991), The Household: Informal Order Around the Hearth (2008), Land Use Controls: Cases and Materials (4th ed. 2013, with Vicki Been, Roderick M. Hills, Jr. & Christopher Serkin), and Perspectives on Property Law (4th ed. 2014, with Carol M. Rose & Henry E. Smith). In addition to Yale, Prof. Ellickson has taught at USC, Stanford, and as a visiting professor at Harvard and the University of Chicago. He was a founding member and later a director of the American Law & Economics Association, and served as its President in 2000-2001. In 2016, the Association awarded him the Ronald H. Coase Medal in recognition of his scholarly contributions. Ellickson received the William & Mary Law School’s Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Prize for Property Scholarship, and he is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Prior to entering teaching, he worked for a Presidential commission on housing and for a homebuilding firm.
Edward L. Glaeser (Harvard University)
Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics & Chair, Department of Economics
Edward Glaeser has published dozens of papers on cities economic growth, law, and economics. In particular, his work has focused on the determinants of city growth and the role of cities as centers of idea transmission. His books include Cities, Agglomeration, and Spatial Equilibrium (Oxford University Press, 2008), Rethinking Federal Housing Policy (American Enterprise Institute Press, 2008), Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier (Penguin Press, 2011), and Survival of the City: Mass Flourishing in an Age of Social Isolation (Penguin Press, 2021). At Harvard, Professor Glaeser teaches a ranger of courses, including microeconomic theory, urban economics and public economics, and currently serves as the Chairman of the Department of Economics. He has served as Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government, and Director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1992.
Stijn G. Van Nieuwerburgh (Columbia University)
Earle W. Kazis and Benjamin Schore Professor of Real Estate and Professor of Finance, Graduate School of Business
Professor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh's research lies in the intersection of real estate finance, asset pricing, housing, and macroeconomics. One strand of his work studies how financial market liberalization in the mortgage market relaxed households' down payment constraints, and how that affected the macro-economy, and the prices of stocks and bonds. In this area he has also worked on regional housing prices, households’ mortgage choice, commercial real estate price formation, the impact of foreign buyers on the housing market, and mortgage market design. He has published articles in the Journal of Political Economy, American Economic Review, Econometrica, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial Economics, and the Journal of Monetary Economics, among other journals. He is Editor at the Review of Financial Studies; a Faculty Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and at the Center for European Policy Research; and Affiliated Faculty at the Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate at Columbia. Van Nieuwerburgh was awarded the 15th Edition of the Bérnácer Prize for his research on the transmission of shocks in the housing market on the macro-economy and the prices of financial assets.