Brian Asquith

Brian Asquith is an applied microeconomist specializing in labor, urban/regional, and public economics. Research interests include the aging of the American workforce, machine learning applications in economics, housing and rent control, and the decline of mobility in the United States.

Asquith’s dissertation includes one paper on housing regulations and mobility, one on rent control, and one on grandchildren’s influence on their grandparents’ labor force attachment. The rent control paper won two national awards, including the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association (AREUEA) Homer Hoyt Best Dissertation Prize. A short excerpt appears in the 2019 edition of AEA Papers and Proceedings. Currently, he is researching why older workers, who are facing rising financial distress and job displacement, are increasingly less likely to relocate, as well as work on trade and employment, and the long-run consequences of anti-poverty policies on disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Asquith joined the Upjohn Institute in 2018 after being an Alfred E. Sloan postdoctoral fellow at NBER. Asquith received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Irvine in 2017 and studied mathematics and economics at Brandeis University as an undergraduate.

Research Highlights

Upjohn Institute participates in 2024 ASSA conference in San Antonio

December 18, 2023 · Research Highlight
Upjohn staff present research each day of the conference

Housing policy crucial to stem coronavirus fallout

March 25, 2020 · Research Highlight
Five areas where policymakers should act quickly to address problems in the housing market

New apartment buildings in low-income areas decrease nearby rents

January 10, 2020 · Research Highlight
New research shows new market-rate buildings lower nearby rents 5 to 7 percent and cause more people from lower-income neighborhoods to move in.

Rent control—is the cure worse than the disease?

October 24, 2019 · Research Highlight

Earned Income Tax Credit reduces poverty over the long term in disadvantaged areas

June 6, 2019 · Research Highlight
New research shows long-term benefits of antipoverty policies in areas of concentrated poverty.