Hi, I'm Benji.

I'll be joining Loyola University Chicago in the fall of 2025 as an assistant professor. I completed my PhD in Applied Economics at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 2025.

My research covers the intersection of the environment and cities, with an emphasis on urban, environmental, and public economics. My job market paper studies how local management of water scarcity affects new housing supply and residential water use in Colorado.

Previously, I was an adjunct fellow and research associate at the American Enterprise Institute's Housing Center. I received my B.A. in Economics and International Relations from the University of Southern California. My published work has been on topics including household mobility, gentrification, and riskiness in mortgage lending.

My original name was Benjamin R. Smith, which you'll see on my earlier publications.

Please check out my Google Scholar and LinkedIn pages.

Job Market Paper

Published Research

Selected Works in Progress

The Welfare Effects of Building Codes

Job Market Paper

The share of water providers with a variable water impact fee (which sets fees relative to expected water use instead of using a flat rate) doubled from 2000-2019, as did the share of new single-family homes built under a variable water impact fee.

Water Scarcity Management and Housing Markets: Evidence from Water Impact Fees in Colorado

Find the latest version here.

Honorable Mention, 2024 Urban Economics Association Student Paper Competition.

This paper examines the effects of local water scarcity management on housing markets, water use, and welfare in Colorado. Rising costs of securing water for new developments have led water utilities to raise the water impact fees (WIFs) that home builders pay to connect new units to the water system, and to adopt variable WIFs based on expected water use. Using a novel dataset on water utility policies, housing outcomes, and aerial imagery with a staggered difference-in-differences approach, I find that variable WIFs reduce new single-family lot sizes by 15% and irrigated areas by 30%, decreasing household water use by 15%. I also find that WIFs are fully capitalized into house prices. To estimate the effect on total water use, housing supply, and welfare, I develop and estimate an equilibrium model of new single-family housing where landowners endogenously choose the lot size and irrigated area of new housing. I estimate that variable pricing policies have increased welfare by $120 million and consumer surplus by $3,500 per household. However, even though metropolitan-area level water use declines, changes to housing supply cause a local rebound effect that increases utility-level water use among adopting providers by 3%. In contrast, counterfactual policies that cap irrigated areas lower utility-level water use among adopters by 8%, but have limited welfare effects.

Published Research

Figure shows the share of moves from origin zip codes to the top destination zip codes, highlighting the concentration of mobility between neighborhoods.

Household Mobility, Network, and Gentrification of Minority Neighborhoods in the US

with Jeanna Kenney and Fernando Ferreira. Journal of Labor Economics, April 2024. (published version) (PDF)

We investigate the impact of recent gentrification shocks on minority neighborhoods in the 50 largest U.S. labor markets. We show that household moves from a given neighborhood are concentrated to few destinations with similar minority shares and strong network ties, but those neighborhoods are farther away from downtown. Gentrification affects Black neighborhoods by raising house prices, reducing the proportion of Black households, and increasing the share of movers going to neighborhoods with network ties. However, gentrification has negligible effects on Hispanic neighborhoods. Overall labor market area segregation decreases after a gentrification shock because highly Black neighborhoods become less segregated.

Figure shows the average riskiness of mortgage lending, highlighting the rise in riskiness before 2000.

A Quarter Century of Mortgage Risk

with Morris Davis, William Larson, and Stephen Oliner. Review of Finance, March 2023. (published version) (PDF)

Runner-up for the 2023 Pagano and Zechner Prize for the best non-investments paper published in the Review of Finance.

This article provides a comprehensive history of default risk for newly originated home mortgages in the USA over the past quarter century. The loan-level source data include the entire guarantee book for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. We track many loan characteristics and produce a summary measure of risk. Among our many results, we show that mortgage risk had already risen in the 1990s, planting seeds of the financial crisis well before the actual event. Our results also cast doubt on explanations of the crisis that focus on borrowers with low credit scores. The aggregate series are available for download at https://www.fhfa.gov/papers/wp1902.aspx.

Selected Works in Progress

Hi, I'm Benji.

Job Market Paper

Water Scarcity Management and Housing Markets: Evidence from Water Impact Fees in Colorado

Published Research

Household Mobility, Network, and Gentrification of Minority Neighborhoods in the US

A Quarter Century of Mortgage Risk

Selected Works in Progress

The Welfare Effects of Building Codes

Get in touch at bedelstein [at] luc [dot] edu