Close
Rethinking Infrastructure: Professor Christian Hilber | London School of Economics
20 March 2018, 6:30 pm鈥�7:30 pm
Event Information
Open to
- All
Availability
- Yes
Cost
- 拢0.00
Organiser
-
The Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management+442031083304
Location
-
The Bartlett: UCL's Faculty of the Built Environment
Constraining second home investments: the economic impacts
听- Professor of Economic Geography at the听听- joins us for the final event in听The Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management鈥檚听2017-18 keynote lecture series.
Constraining second home investments in tourist destinations or superstar cities is an increasingly popular policy, not just in the UK but across the globe.
In this lecture, Professor Hilber investigates the housing and labour market impacts of such political backlash against wealthy investors.
He provides evidence from a quasi-natural experiment - the Swiss 鈥楽econd Home Initiative鈥� - suggesting that the adverse effects of banning second home investments on local economies dominate any positive amenity preservation effects. Local residents are on average worse off, while existing owners of second homes are the main beneficiaries.
Professor Hilber concludes that, at least in locations where primary and second homes are not very close substitutes, constraining second home investments may reinforce rather than reduce wealth inequality. Imposing an additional annual local tax on the value of second homes is a preferable (less bad) policy than banning the construction of new second homes outright.
The lecture will begin at 18.30 and will be followed by a networking reception from 19.30.
About our speaker
听is Professor of Economic Geography at the (LSE). Before joining LSE, he was an economist at听听and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the听. He holds a PhD in Economics from the听.
听
Prof Hilber's research interests include urban economics, real estate (in particular land and housing markets), local public finance, and political economics. He is the Director of LSE鈥檚 . He is an Associate of the LSE's听听and of the听.
He has won numerous prizes for his teaching and research including the LSE Teaching Prize (2016), the LSE Major Review Teaching Prize (2009), various best paper and annual referee prizes, and the University of Basel PhD Prize (1999). Prof Hilber has published in journals such as听,听,听听and听.