<< Back to Faculty Edgar O. Olsen Professor of Economics and Public Policy Education & Training Ph.D., Economics, Rice University, 1968 B.A., Economics and Mathematics, Tulane University, 1963 434-924-3443 eoo@virginia.edu Monroe 250 Curriculum Vitae Research Website Courses taught Economics of Public Policy I Economics of Welfare Reform Economics of the Public Sector Areas of focus Domestic Policy & Politics Economics UVA partners Department of Economics Ed Olsen is a professor of economics in the College of Arts and Sciences, where he served as chairman of the Department of Economics, and a professor of public policy in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. He is a nonresident visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He has been a postdoctoral fellow at Indiana University, an economist at the Rand Corporation, a project associate in the Institute for Research on Poverty and a visiting professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Wisconsin, and a visiting scholar at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Ed’s teaching and research has focused on public policy issues, especially concerning the welfare system. Within this broad area, his research specialty is low-income housing policy. He has published papers on housing markets and policies in leading professional journals, and he wrote the chapter on low-income housing programs in the 2003 National Bureau of Economic Research volume on means-tested transfers in the United States and the chapter on U.S. housing policy in the 2015 North-Holland Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics. Ed has testified on low-income housing policy before Congressional committees seven times, has been an expert witness on the topic in two major class-action lawsuits, and has been a consultant to HUD during six administrations. Related Content Racial Rent Differences in U.S. Housing Markets Research Alleviating Poverty through Housing Policy Reform Research The purpose of this paper is to describe proposals for reform of low-income housing assistance that will alleviate poverty without increasing public spending. Low-income housing assistance is fertile ground for such reforms. Reforming Housing Assistance Research Getting better outcomes with less public spending is always desirable, and our current fiscal situation adds urgency to this task. Low-income housing assistance is fertile ground for such reforms. U.S. Housing Policy Research Governments throughout the world intervene heavily in housing markets, and most have multiple policies to pursue multiple goals. This chapter deals with two of the largest types of housing policies in the United States, namely, low-income rental assistance and policies to promote homeownership through interventions in mortgage markets. A Panel of Interarea Price Indices for All Areas in the United States 1982-2012 Research This paper documents the production of a panel of price indices for housing services, other produced goods, and all produced goods for each metropolitan area in the United States and the non-metropolitan part of each state from 1982 through 2012 that can be used for estimating behavioral relationships, studying the workings of markets, and assessing differences in the economic circumstances of people living in different areas. Our general approach is to first produce cross-sectional price indices for a single year 2000 and then use BLS time-series price indices to create the panel. Pursuing Poverty Deconcentration Distracts from Housing Policy Reforms That Would Have a Greater Effect on Poverty Alleviation Research The federal government has multiple housing policies to pursue multiple goals. For example, it promotes homeownership primarily through provisions of the individual income tax. Performance and Legacy of Housing Policies Research Improving the housing of the poorest families was a high priority for President Lyndon B. Johnson. The widely-publicized problems found in the nation’s most distressed public housing projects, together with the fairly steady official poverty rate in the US since LBJ’s administration, have led many to a pessimistic view about what was accomplished by the War on Poverty’s housing programs for low-income families. Geographic Price Variation, Housing Assistance, and Poverty Research Two important shortcomings of the official measure of poverty are its failure to account for noncash benefits (including the benefits of low-income housing programs) when calculating resources and differences in the cost-of-living across geographic areas when setting poverty thresholds. Alternative estimates of poverty rates that account for the variation in the cost-of-living across areas when setting thresholds and the value of rental housing subsidies when measuring household resources have been produced. Fundamental Housing Policy Reforms to End Homelessness Research The failure to offer assistance to all individuals of the types who become homeless is a major defect of the current system of low-income housing assistance. Fundamental reforms of the system that are justified on other grounds would eliminate this defect. View All
Alleviating Poverty through Housing Policy Reform Research The purpose of this paper is to describe proposals for reform of low-income housing assistance that will alleviate poverty without increasing public spending. Low-income housing assistance is fertile ground for such reforms.
Reforming Housing Assistance Research Getting better outcomes with less public spending is always desirable, and our current fiscal situation adds urgency to this task. Low-income housing assistance is fertile ground for such reforms.
U.S. Housing Policy Research Governments throughout the world intervene heavily in housing markets, and most have multiple policies to pursue multiple goals. This chapter deals with two of the largest types of housing policies in the United States, namely, low-income rental assistance and policies to promote homeownership through interventions in mortgage markets.
A Panel of Interarea Price Indices for All Areas in the United States 1982-2012 Research This paper documents the production of a panel of price indices for housing services, other produced goods, and all produced goods for each metropolitan area in the United States and the non-metropolitan part of each state from 1982 through 2012 that can be used for estimating behavioral relationships, studying the workings of markets, and assessing differences in the economic circumstances of people living in different areas. Our general approach is to first produce cross-sectional price indices for a single year 2000 and then use BLS time-series price indices to create the panel.
Pursuing Poverty Deconcentration Distracts from Housing Policy Reforms That Would Have a Greater Effect on Poverty Alleviation Research The federal government has multiple housing policies to pursue multiple goals. For example, it promotes homeownership primarily through provisions of the individual income tax.
Performance and Legacy of Housing Policies Research Improving the housing of the poorest families was a high priority for President Lyndon B. Johnson. The widely-publicized problems found in the nation’s most distressed public housing projects, together with the fairly steady official poverty rate in the US since LBJ’s administration, have led many to a pessimistic view about what was accomplished by the War on Poverty’s housing programs for low-income families.
Geographic Price Variation, Housing Assistance, and Poverty Research Two important shortcomings of the official measure of poverty are its failure to account for noncash benefits (including the benefits of low-income housing programs) when calculating resources and differences in the cost-of-living across geographic areas when setting poverty thresholds. Alternative estimates of poverty rates that account for the variation in the cost-of-living across areas when setting thresholds and the value of rental housing subsidies when measuring household resources have been produced.
Fundamental Housing Policy Reforms to End Homelessness Research The failure to offer assistance to all individuals of the types who become homeless is a major defect of the current system of low-income housing assistance. Fundamental reforms of the system that are justified on other grounds would eliminate this defect.