Susan M. Wachter

Susan M. Wachter is the Albert Sussman Professor of Real Estate, and Professor of Finance at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the Director for the Wharton GeoSpatial Initiative and Lab, and the co-director of the Penn Institute for Urban Research. She also co-directs the Spatial Integration Laboratory for Urban Systems at the University of Pennsylvania. As an economist, she is frequently sought for comment on real estate market trends in well known media outlets—a recent interview with the International Monetary Fund summarizes her views and research.

Wachter was appointed the Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research with the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (1998-2001). She currently serves on the Financial Research Advisory Committee for the Office of Financial Research, a sub-department of the U.S. Department of the Treasury (2016). Wachter was Celia Moh Visiting Professor at Singapore Management University (2004). She serves on the Board of Editors for various publications including the Journal of Housing Economics, the Housing Policy Debate, the Journal of Real Estate and Finance, and the Journal of Real Estate Research. Wachter is the co-editor, with Eugenie L. Birch, of the Social Science Research Network Urban Research eJournal.

She has been President of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association (1988-1989). Wachter has also served on the Global Urban Development Advisory Board, the National Research Council Review and on HUD Research (2008), the Advisory Board for Regulatory Research with the National Association of Homebuilders (2005-2006), the Board of Directors for the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association (2003-2006), and the Blue Ribbon Committee on Housing Finance (2005-2006). From 1998-2001 she served on the White House Interagency Taskforce for E-Government and the White House Interagency Taskforce on Liveable Cities.

Wachter is a recipient of the Anvil Award for Teaching Excellence, the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Best International Paper Award, and the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Lifetime Achievement Award.

Some of Wachter's works are listed below

Books

• The Great American Housing Bubble: What Went Wrong and How We Can Protect Ourselves in the Future (Harvard University Press 2020) 400 pages. ISBN 978-0674979659 (with Adam J. Levitin).
• Inflation and Pensions, (Homewood, IL:Richard D. Irwin, Inc., December 1987) 375 pages.
• Latin American Inflation:The Structuralist-Monetarist Debate (Lexington, MA:Lexington Books, D.C. Heath & Co., September 1976) 165 pages. ISBN 978-0-669-99622-7

Selected edited books

• Susan M. Wachter; Kimberly Zeuli (2014). Revitalizing American Cities. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-4555-4.
• Women Health and the World’s Cities, co-editors Afaf Ibrahim Meleis and Eugénie L. Birch (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania, 2011) 328 pages.
• The American Mortgage System: Crisis and Reform, co-editor Marvin Smith (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania, 2011) 392 pages
• Neighborhood and Life Chances: How Place Matters in Modern America, co-editors Harriet B. Newburger and Eugénie L. Birch (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania, 2011) 352 pages.

Selected book chapters

• “Implications of the Housing Market Bubble for Sustainable Homeownership," co-authors Paul Calem and Leonard Nakamura, The American Mortgage System: Crisis and Reform, eds. Wachter and Smith, Philadelphia: Penn Press (2011).
• “Information Failure and the U.S. Mortgage Crisis,” co-author Adam Levitin, The American Mortgage System: Crisis and Reform, eds. Wachter and Smith, Philadelphia: Penn Press (2011).
• “Using Econometrics and Geographic Information Systems for Property Valuation: A Spatial Hedonic Pricing Model,” co-authors Richard Bernknopf, Kevin Gillen and Anne Wein, Visual Valuation: Implementing Valuation Modeling and Geographic Information Solutions, eds. Mark R. Linne and Michelle Thompson, Chicago: Appraisal Institute, August 2010.
• “The Housing Finance Revolution,” co-author Richard Green, reprinted in The Blackwell Companion to the Economics of Housing: The Housing Wealth of Nations, eds. Susan Smith and Beverley Searle, London: John Wiley & Sons, 2010.
• “Urban Growth and Housing Affordability: The Conflict,” co-author Richard Voith, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Volume 626, November 2009, p. 112.
• “Introduction,” co-author Eugénie Birch, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Volume 626, November 2009, p. 112.

Articles

• "REIT Capital Structure Choices: Preparation Matters," co-authors Andrey D. Pavolv and Eva Steiner, Real Estate Economics, forthcoming
• "Borrowing Constraints and Homeownership," co-authors Arthur Acolon, Jesse Bricker, and Paul S. Calem, American Economic Review, Vol. 106, No. 5, p. 625-629, 2016
• "Second-Liens and the Leverage Option," co-author Adam J. Levitin, Vanderbilt Law Review, Vol. 68, 2015
• "Transparency in the Mortgage Market," co-authors Andrey Pavlov and Albert Alex Zevelev, Journal of Financial Services Research, 2015
• "The Housing and Credit Bubbles in the US and Europe: A Comparison," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Vol. 47, Issue SI, March/April 2015, p. 37-42
• "Why Housing?" co-author Adam J. Levitin, Housing Policy Debate, Vol. 23, No. I, p. 5-27, 2013
• "Immigration and the Neighborhood," co-author Albert Saiz, American Economic Journal: economic Policy, Vol. 3, p. 169-188, 2011
• "Suprime Lending and Real Estate Prices," co-author Andrey D. Pavlov, Real Estate Economics, Vol. 39, Issue 1, p. 1-17, 2011
• "The Inevitability of Marketwide Underpricing of Mortgage Default Risk," co-author Andrey D. Pavlov, Real Estate Economics, Vol. 34, No. 4, p. 479-496, 2006
• "Mortgage Put Options and Real Estate Markets," co-author Andrey D. Pavlov, Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Vol. 38, No. 1, 2009
• "Explaining the Housing Bubble," co-author Adam J. Levitin, Georgetown Law Journal, Vol. 100, No. 4, p. 1177-1258, 2012