The Fisher Center annually sponsors a research grant program available to all UC Berkeley Ph.D. students with research projects in the areas of real estate, real estate finance, and urban economics. Over the past twenty years, the Center has given out more than $2,000,000 to over 100 students and faculty at Berkeley.
The Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics has a limited amount of funding available for research proposals for UC Berkeley Ph.D. candidates and invites you to submit a proposal to fund research for fiscal year 2026/27. (Please note that this year the Fisher Center is not funding faculty research projects.)
Faculty may sponsor a Ph.D. by submitting a letter of recommendation, along with the student’s project statement.
PROPOSAL DUE DATE: Friday, May 1, 2026
TOPICS: Research related to real estate asset and capital markets, spatial economics, agglomeration and urban economics, climate risk and sustainability, transportation housing and mortgage markets, or consumer credit – all broadly defined.
FUNDING PERIOD: August 1, 2026 through May 30, 2027
TOTAL FUNDING AMOUNT: Up to $15,000 per project
PhD PROPOSALS MUST INCLUDE:
- A letter from the faculty sponsor
- A project statement from the student.
Project Statement: A concise single-spaced (4 pages maximum) proposal describing the research project. The statement should clearly address:
- The core research questions
- The relevant literature and the scholarly contributions the project aims to make
- Research methodology. In your research methodology section, please include modelling approach and data sources. If applicable, applicants should indicate whether access to restricted data sources has already been obtained or is still pending.
You may attach a draft version of your research paper to your proposal (if applicable), but the project statement should be able to stand alone.
PhD STUDENT REQUIREMENTS:
- All Ph.D. proposals must be submitted through a faculty member.
- Student must have passed orals and received thesis committee approval before the start of the Fall 2026 semester in August 2026.
- Student must register for and attend the weekly Research Seminar in Real Estate and the graduate student preseminar in both Fall 2026 and Spring 2027 semesters.
- Submit at least one working paper on the research topic. The paper must include an abstract and, with faculty approval, it will be included in the Center’s working paper series.
APPLICATION: SUBMISSION FORM (LINK)
NOTIFICATION: Decisions will be made by the Fisher Center’s Research Grants Committee. Applicants will be notified by June 30, 2026.
QUESTIONS? : Contact Tom Chappelear via email ([email protected]) or call 510-643-6109.
For more information on applying, please contact Thomas Chappelear via email ([email protected]) or call 510-643-6109.
2025-2026 Fisher Center Grant Recipients
Daniela Paz, PhD Candidate, Economics
The Economic Effects of Safe Transportation in Developing Cities
Insecurity in the transportation system represents one of the most significant mobility barriers affecting women disproportionately more than men. Lack of safe transport can translate into girls missing schools, women not looking for jobs far away from home, giving up their jobs, or being unable to access health or childcare services. In Santiago de Chile, the government will implement “safe bus stops” to reduce the number of crimes and violence women experience in the transportation system. This study aims to study this program and establish if this type of intervention could change women’s commuting decisions and ultimately education and labor outcomes.
Elif Tasar, PhD Candidate, Agricultural and Resource Economics
Inheritances, Housing, and Wealth Inequality in the US
This project examines behavioral responses to inheritances and the role of inheritances in shaping wealth inequality in the U.S. Using federal tax records and other administrative data, we estimate event studies around parental death to identify changes in wealth attributable to inheritances. We first study how inheritances influence earnings, geographic mobility, and family formation. We then examine the share of the population that receives an inheritance, the composition of inheritances across different asset classes, and the effects of inheritances on the wealth distribution.
John Kadlick, PhD Candidate, Economics
How Much Does Free Parking Cost?
Parking minimums are land use regulations that require new developments to include a set number of parking spaces. Existing research has established that these mandates are prevalent in the United States and costly for developers. However, the indirect costs of these mandates—such as their effects on wages and rents—remain poorly understood. To address this gap, I study a policy reform in Seattle that eliminated parking minimums near transit. By comparing developments just inside and outside of these transit catchment zones, I estimate how parking minimums shape developer behavior and build a quantitative spatial model to characterize the welfare effect of these quantity controls.
Akcan Balkir, PhD Candidate, Economics
Energy Communities
In 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act sought to create an equitable green energy transition through place-based tax incentives for renewable energy investment. This project studies whether location-tagged tax incentives transition disadvantaged fossil fuel communities to greener industries. The first stage of this project documents increased energy investment within targeted communities. By combining this analysis with administrative tax and survey records, I will study whether the residents of traditionally fossil fuel communities benefitted from local renewable energy investments through increased wages, industry transitions, or increased local tax revenue.
Dustin Swonder, PhD Candidate, Economics
Shared Appreciation Loans for Owner-Occupied Housing: Evidence from a California Lottery
Saving for a large down payment to secure affordable mortgage financing is a formidable challenge for many prospective homebuyers. I examine the effects of a 2024 program which eased this burden by randomly allocating down payment assistance loans of up to $150,000 to nearly 2,000 homebuyers. The project links administrative program data to credit bureau and property records, and leverages random loan allocation to measure the causal effects of down payment assistance loan access on home buying, loan and property characteristics, neighborhood choice, and other economic outcomes.
Elaine Shen, PhD Candidate, Economics
Who self-selects into financial literacy education? Does positive self-selection lead to greater inequality or measurement bias when evaluating the impact of financial literacy education? Financial literacy education has long been thought of as a potential policy tool for promoting economic mobility, reducing inequality, and improving long-term financial outcomes for individuals and households. However, the evidence evaluating the impact of financial literacy education on real-world financial outcomes remains somewhat weak. By combining administrative data on a large financial literacy class with a lab-in-field experiment, we evaluate whether there is positive selection into financial literacy education.