Alberto Nasi

I am an urban economist with a specific interest in the relationship between residential prices, rents and their geographical distribution.
In my work, I focus on the implications of geography for substantive questions regarding the housing market. I leverage granular data and state-of-the-art empirical identification strategies together with quantitative spatial models, in order to better understand the geographic behavior of households and their macroeconomic and policy implications. In a broader perspective, I am interested in how choices by economic actors and their geographic distribution influence the economy and interact with government policies.
 

I am currently on the job market for the academic year 2025/2026.

JOB MARKET PAPER

Mortgage Rates and the Price-to-Rent Ratio Across Space.

My Job Market Paper develops a parsimonious housing market model that conceptualizes residential real estate as both a non-tradable consumption good and an investment asset. The framework embeds households’ joint location–tenure choices, which shape local price-to-rent ratios. I test its predictions using a granular dataset of Italian housing prices and rents and a shift-share instrumental variable design exploiting heterogeneity in mortgage uptake across age groups. The results show that mortgage rate shocks induce spatially asymmetric responses in prices, rents, price-to-rent ratios, population, and tenure choices, consistent with the implications of the model. A structural estimation reproduces these heterogeneous effects and indicates that a positive mortgage rate shock alleviates spatial welfare inequality and narrows the divide between renters and homeowners.
 

WORK IN PROGRESS

• Nasi A. (2022). Property Taxation and Real Estate Price Dispersion.

OTHER MEDIA

• Nasi, A. (2025, October). Caro Casa, Emergenza Nazionale o Problema Locale? Rivista Eco, 10.