My dissertation investigates the political causes and
consequences of housing supply in advanced democracies, with a focus on the role of local politicians.
While housing affordability has become a central challenge globally, political science has paid limited
attention to how local politicians' incentives shape housing outcomes. My research explores when and how
local elected officials permit more housing, and under what conditions this is shaped by electoral
incentives.
Using original data on housing permits and construction, municipal election outcomes, local budgets, and
interviews with politicians in Germany, I show that politicians' incentives help explain variation in
the amount, type (e.g., single- vs. multi-family), ownership structure (public vs. private), and
location (urban vs. peripheral) of housing supply.
In addition to observational analyses, I field original surveys of both voters and local politicians to
probe the micro-foundations of my theory. Finally, I study the downstream political and socio-economic
effects of increased housing supply in Germany and the United States.
The dissertation contributes to debates on political representation, local governance, and the limits of
national policymaking in addressing structural challenges like housing. It also revisits foundational
claims about the (in)significance of local politics for economic outcomes, arguing that local political
decisions—particularly about land use—are central to understanding the geography of inequality in the
21st century.