My academic research has three main areas of focus. One is the modern Irish housing market, including the determinants of sale and rental prices (and the relationship between the two) at the level of the market and the level of the individual property. Some of my published work in this area examines the relationship between credit conditions and housing market outcomes and, as part of the I-HAVE and CONSEED projects, how specific amenities, such as energy efficiency, flood risk or employment by foreign-owned firms, affect the price of homes. A second area of research focus is housing markets over the long run. While housing has for generations been both one of the main services we spend our incomes on, and the main asset in the typical household’s portfolio, we know very little about the path of housing prices, on a like-for-like basis, over longer time-spans. I am working on new housing price indices, for Ireland, the US (with generous funding from the Lincoln Institute and the NSF) and Canada, typically from the late 19th century, with a view to better understanding how housing markets work, the true path of housing prices over the long run, and what that means for our understanding of growth in prices, living standards and wealth. My final area of research focus is Irish economic history and, since 2022, I have been an Associate Director of the Centre for Economics, Policy & History (CEPH) and leading its Irish Data Compendium workstream. My work on Irish economic history is a broader canvas and includes analysis of Irish equity prices since the early 19th century and the impact on Ireland’s economic development of various factors, including the Act of Union, the introduction of rail, subsidised housing for agricultural labourers, and the Great Depression and Anglo-Irish Trade War.

Below is a list of articles published in peer-reviewed journals, other publications (in particular book chapters) and an overview of my work-in-progress. My academic CV is available here and you can also check out my profile on RePEc, ORCID and Google Scholar.

Working Papers

• “Agglomeration and Emigration: The Economic Impact of Railways in Post-Famine Ireland” (PDF), with Alan Fernihough (QUB). Under review. Discussion in my TheCurrency column here.
• “Rooted to the Soil – Social housing and the spread of population in Ireland“, with Alan de Bromhead (QUB). Under revision. Overview at VoxEU here, discussion in my TheCurrency column here.
• “Better energy cost information changes household property investment decisions: Evidence from a nationwide experiment“, with James Carroll & Eleanor Denny (TCD). Part of the CONSEED project funded by the European Commission as part of Horizon 2020. Under revision.
• “The Rise & Fall of Urban Concentration in Britain: Zipf, Gibrat and Gini across two centuries“, with Elisa Tirindelli (TCD). Under review.
• “Information Matters: Evidence from flood risk in the Irish housing market“, with Tom Gillespie (NUIG) and Thomas McDermott (NUIG). Under review.
• “Picture and Playground: Valuing Coastal Amenities“, with Tom Gillespie and Stephen Hynes. Trinity Economic Papers tep0518, May 2018. Under revision. Sample media coverage: Irish Times, thejournal.ie, Irish Examiner, World Property Journal.
• “Housing prices, costs and policy: the housing supply equation in Ireland since 1970”, with Maximilian Guennewig-Moenert (TCD). Under revision, November 2021 version here (PDF).

Published articles

• “Housing Prices, Yields and Credit Conditions in Dublin since 1945“, with Richard Keely. Journal of Real Estate Finance & Economics (2020). Final revised version available here.
• “Three Triggers? Negative Equity, Income Shocks and Institutions as Determinants of Mortgage Default“, with Andrew Linn. Journal of Real Estate Finance & Economics (2019). Working paper version.
• “The Silent Treatment: Discrimination against same-sex relations in the sharing economy“, with Rishi Ahuja. Oxford Economic Papers (2019). Sample media coverage: Irish Examiner, Irish Times, Newstalk, The Times, and GCN. Working paper version.
• “How do households perceive flood-risk? The impact of flooding on the cost of accommodation in Dublin, Ireland“, with Salem Gharbia and Francesco Pilla. Science of the Total Environment (2019). Working paper version.
• “Credit Conditions and the Housing Price Ratio: Evidence from the Irish boom and bust“. Journal of Housing Economics (2018). Final working paper (substantially updated compared to Trinity Economic Papers tep0717).
• “Ireland in 2040: Urbanization, demographics and housing,” Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland (2018), 47 pp. 122-128. Invited submission.
• “Can list prices accurately capture housing price trends? Insights from extreme markets conditions“. Finance Research Letters (2018). Final working paper (letters version very different to original Trinity Economic Papers tep0613).
• “The impact of employment on housing prices: detailed evidence from FDI in Ireland“, with Kerri Agnew. Regional Science and Urban Economics (2018), 70. pp. 174-189. Final working paper.
• “The price effect of building energy ratings in the Dublin residential market“, with Sarah Stanley and Sean Lyons. Energy Efficiency (2016) 9:4. pp. 875-885. Working paper version.
• “East, west, boom and bust: the spread of house prices and rents in Ireland, 2007–2012,” Journal of Property Research (2015), 32:1 pp. 77-101.
• “Housing supply in Ireland since 1990: The role of costs and regulation,” Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland (2015) 44: pp. 141-155. Paper based on lecture given as 126th winner of the Barrington Medal.
• “A monthly stock exchange index for Ireland, 1864–1930,” with Richard S. Grossman, Kevin H. O’Rourke, and Madalina A. Ursu. European Review of Economic History (2014) 18:3, pp. 248-276.
• “The value of domestic building energy efficiency – evidence from Ireland,” with Marie Hyland and Seán Lyons. Energy Economics (2013), 40:C pp. 943-952.
• “The real value of house prices: what the cost of accommodation can tell policymakers,” Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland (2012), 41 pp. 71-91.

Books and book chapters

• “Housing Market: Supply, Pricing and Servicing Issues”. In John O’Hagan and Francis O’Toole (eds), The Economy of Ireland – Policy & Performance (13th and 14th editions). London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2017 and 2021. Draft version here.
• “Housing and Austerity: A Two-Way Street”. In Emma Heffernan, John McHale and Dr Niamh Moore-Cherry (eds), Debating Austerity in Ireland. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2017. Draft version here.
• “The spread of rents in Ireland, over time and space,” in Lorcan Sirr (ed), Renting in Ireland. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration, 2014. Draft version here.
• “Inside a Bubble and Crash – Evidence from the Valuation of Amenities”, in Morten Balling (ed), Property Prices and Real Estate Financing in a Turbulent World. Vienna: SUERF/Austrian National Bank, 2013. Working paper version here.
• Next Generation Ireland, with Edward Burke (editors), Dublin: Blackhall Press (now Orpen Press), 2011.
• “Towards Perfect Information: The Case of the Housing Market”, in Stephen Kinsella & Anthony Leddin (eds.), Understanding Ireland’s Economic Crisis: Prospects for Recovery. Dublin: Blackhall Press (now Orpen Press), 2010.

Earlier-stage work

• “Housing Prices and the Standard of Living in the United States since the Civil War”, with Rowena Gray (UC Merced) and Allison Shertzer (Pittsburgh). Funded by the National Science Foundation.
• “Shock of the Union: Economic policy and the long-run pattern of trade”, with Dan Bogart (UC Irvine), Hannah Kling (Belmont Abbey) and Patrick Walsh (TCD).
• “Long-run patterns and shifts in wealth – Insights from Irish equities since 1825”, with Richard S. Grossman, Masami Imai (both Wesleyan), & Kevin H. O’Rourke (NYU Abu Dhabi).
• “Under Control? New York City rent control in the 1920s”, with Maximilian Guennewig-Moenert (TCD) and Sun Kyoung Lee (Yale).
• “Ireland: A Macro-historical database, 1920-2020”.