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.

I research 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 work in this area examines the relationship between housing prices, supply and credit conditions.

As part of the I-HAVE and CONSEED projects, I also look at how specific amenities, such as energy efficiency, flood risk or employment by foreign-owned firms, affect the price of homes.

Since 2022, I have been an Associate Director of the Centre for Economics, Policy & History (CEPH) and leading its Irish Data Compendium workstream. This work 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.