Edgar Olsen

Edgar Olsen

Professor

E-mail:
Phone: 434-924-3443
Personal Website

Address:
PO Box 400182
Department of Economics
Monroe Hall
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4182

Research Interests

Housing markets and policies, welfare policies.

Education

• Bachelor of Arts (BA), Tulane University
• Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Rice University

Current Downloadable Papers

Increasing the Value of MTO Research for Housing Policy Development (.pdf)

Subsidized Housing, Emergency Shelters, and Homelessness: An Empirical Investigation Using Data from the 1990 Census, with Dirk Early

The Cost-Effectiveness of Alternative Methods of Delivering Housing Subsidies (.pdf)

Should the Housing Choice Voucher Program Be Converted to a Block Grant? (.pdf)

The Millennial Housing Commission Report: An Assessment (.pdf)

The Effects of Different Types of Housing Assistance on Earnings and Employment (.pdf)

Explaining Attrition in the Housing Voucher Program (.pdf)

The Simple Analytics of Vouchering Out Unit-Based Housing Assistance (.pdf)

Promoting Homeownership among Low-Income Households

Getting More from Low-Income Housing Assistance (.pdf)

The Future of Public Housing (.pdf)

"A Panel of Price Indices for Housing, Other Goods, and All Goods for All Areas in the United States 1982-2008" (.pdf)

The Effect on Program Participation of Replacing Current Low-Income Housing Programs with an Entitlement Housing Voucher Program (.pdf)

Report on Adjusting Poverty Thresholds for Geographic Price Differences (.pdf)

Geographical Price Variation, Housing Assistance and Poverty (.pdf)

Public Economics (.pdf)

Oped Pieces

1. UVA Living Wage Q&A (.pdf)
2. Housing the Poorest Hurricane Victims (.pdf)
3. Housing the Poorest Hurricane Victims-NOW (.pdf)
4. Rearranging the Deck Chairs in the Housing Market (.pdf)
5. Improving the Housing Provisions of the Stimulus Package (.pdf)

Congressional Testimony

1. House010621Oral12 (.pdf)

Voucher Policy from the Perspective of a Taxpayer Who Wants to Help Low-Income Households (.pdf)

2. Senate011129Oral12 (.pdf)

Housing and Community Development Needs: The FY 2003 HUD Budget (.pdf)

3. House060215Oral12 (.pdf)

   Whither Public Housing? (.pdf)

4. House030617Oral12 (.pdf)

Fundamental Housing Policy Reform (.pdf)

5. Senate080312Oral12 (.pdf)

   Getting More from the HUD Budget (.pdf)

Research Papers

"A Normative Theory of Transfers," Public Choice, VI , 39-58, Spring 1969;

"An Econometric Analysis of Rent Control," Journal of Political Economy, LXXX , 1081-1100, Nov./Dec. 1972;

"The Benefits and Costs of Public Housing in New York City" (with David Barton), Journal of Public Economics, XX, 299-332, April 1983;

"The Demand and Supply of Housing Services: A Critical Survey of the Empirical Literature" in Handbook in Urban Economics, ed., Edwin S. Mills, Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1987;

"The Welfare Economics of Equal Access," (with Diane Lim Rogers), Journal of Public Economics, XLV, 91-105, June 1991;

“Subsidized Housing, Emergency Shelters, and Homelessness: An Empirical Investigation Using Data from the 1990 Census” (with Dirk Early), Advances in Economic Analysis & Policy, 2 (2002), 1-34;

“Are Section 8 Housing Subsidies Too High?” (with Amy Crews Cutts), Journal of Housing Economics, 11 (September 2002), 214-243;

“Housing Programs for Low-Income Households” in Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, ed., Robert Moffitt, National Bureau of Economic Research (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003);

“Achieving Fundamental Housing Policy Reform,” in Promoting the General Welfare:  American Democracy and the Political Economy of Government Performance, edited by Alan Gerber and Eric Patashnik (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2006);

"Low-Income Housing Policy," New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, Second Edition, London:Macmillan, 2008;

“Fundamental Housing Policy Reforms to End Homelessness” in How to House the Homeless, ed., Ingrid Gould Ellen and Brendan O'Flaherty (New York: Russell Sage, 2010).