Todd Sinai is an expert on real estate and public economics, specializing in housing markets and commercial real estate markets. Professor Sinai’s research has focused on investment risk and pricing in residential real estate markets, including taxation benefits and capital gains. In particular, he has analyzed the economic factors that drive housing bubbles, the growth of high-cost “superstar cities,” and the relationship between U.S. house price dynamics and behavioral finance. He also has extensive expertise in commercial real estate and real estate investment trusts.
Professor Sinai has served as a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Banks of Chicago and Philadelphia. He is a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a fellow at the Weimer School of Advanced Studies at the Homer Hoyt Institute, a research foundation.
Professor Sinai is the author or co-author of many book chapters, and co-editor of the book Housing and the Financial Crisis (University of Chicago Press). He has published numerous articles in leading journals, and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Housing Economics, the Journal of Urban Economics, and Real Estate Economics. He received the Highly Cited Author Award from the Journal of Urban Economics for his article on geography, urban development, and the internet. Professor Sinai’s research has also been cited in the popular media, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Businessweek, Bloomberg TV, and CNBC.
For more than two decades at the Wharton School, Professor Sinai has taught courses on real estate investments and real estate economics. An award-winning educator, he also teaches executive education courses on risk and return in real estate investments, mortgage securitization, and real estate investment trusts.
Professor Sinai has been a visiting scholar at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.
