About

Brent W. Ambrose is a Professor of Real Estate at the Pennsylvania State University Smeal College of Business, where he also serves as the Program Director, Director of the Ph.D. Program, and Director of the Borrelli Institute for Real Estate Studies. He holds the Jason and Julie Borrelli Faculty Chair in Real Estate and specializes in real estate finance, corporate finance, and fixed income security analysis. His research interests include Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), mortgage default and foreclosure loss mitigation programs, Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs), fixed-income securities, and consumer credit contracts. Dr. Ambrose has published over 75 refereed articles in leading journals such as The Journal of Finance, The Review of Economics and Statistics, and The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, and his work has garnered over 5,000 citations according to Google Scholar. He has also co-edited a book on household credit usage and has been recognized with awards including the George Bloom Award from AREUEA and election as President of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association. His professional service includes roles as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, fellowships at the Homer Hoyt Advanced Studies Institute and the FDIC Center for Financial Research, and advisory positions with federal agencies on issues related to mortgage default, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and affordable housing. Dr. Ambrose earned his Ph.D. and M.B.A. from the University of Georgia and his B.S. in Business from Wake Forest University.

Research topics

• Economics
• Finance
• Political Science
• Demographic economics
• Labour economics
• Public economics
• Actuarial science
• Microeconomics
• Monetary economics
• Business
• Law

Selected publications

• Firm location and the value-growth premium

  Journal of Empirical Finance · 2026-02-04

  article1st author
  PublisherDOI

• Federal tax policy and the capitalization of local public goods

  Regional Science and Urban Economics · 2025-06-18

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Firm Location and the Value-Growth Premium

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Rent Control, Rent Overcharge, and Racial Disparity

  Real Estate Economics · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Rent control policies have gained renewed legislative momentum in the United States, but are rent‐regulated landlords adhering to these policies? Answering this question is critical to understanding the policy's impact. Using a unique panel data set from the New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey (NYCHVS), we investigate noncompliance with rent caps in New York City. We uncover evidence indicative of widespread rent overcharging. During our sample period, over 30% of rent‐stabilized apartments without turnover had rent increases exceeding the city's rent caps. Moreover, we find that racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to be overcharged than their White counterparts. Supplemented with building permit and code violation data, we provide evidence that our findings are unlikely to be driven by policy provisions that allow additional rent increases, notably (1) preferential rent and (2) major capital improvement.

  PublisherDOI

• The Value of Environmental Monitoring: Evidence from the Housing Market

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Voter-Induced Municipal Credit Risk

  Management Science · 2025-05-30 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Policy shocks that increase the costs of public goods should simultaneously reduce voter support for them. We study the extent to which this creates a corresponding voter-induced municipal credit risk. We exploit changes to state and local tax (SALT) deductions from the Tax Cut and Jobs Act as a policy shock to the costs of local public goods. In a difference-in-differences framework with repeated bond trades, we find that jurisdictions with a higher share of residents who ceased deducting SALT (and therefore, face a higher marginal cost of local public goods) experienced a significant increase in municipal bond yields, with an average treatment effect of 8.3 basis points or 3.0% of the unconditional average yield spread. This effect is concentrated in areas where residents have a direct impact on municipal financing decisions via ballot initiatives. This study thus demonstrates the importance of voters in the pricing of public debt and extends the discussion of political and policy uncertainty and therefore, coordination and agency problems to the municipal context. This paper was accepted by Bo Becker, finance. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2024.06072 .

  PublisherDOI

• Federal Tax Deductions and the Demand for Local Public Goods

  The Review of Economics and Statistics · 2024-02-09 · 6 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract The US tax system allows taxpayers to deduct local taxes from their taxable incomes. Using school district referendum results, we employ a continuous treatment two-way fixed-effects framework to provide causal evidence of a positive relation between the demand for local public goods and the share of residents deducting local taxes. We find that a 1 percentage point decrease in the share of residents deducting property taxes reduces tax and bond referendum approval rates by approximately 0.97 percentage points. Because these federal tax deductions disproportionately benefit higher-income individuals, they potentially widen disparities in public service provision across jurisdictions.

  PublisherDOI

• <p><span>Linking Asset Values to Financing: </span><span><span>The Role of Small-Dollar Mortgages in Cash vs. Mortgage Property Price Disparities</span></span></p>

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Federal Tax Policy and the Capitalization of Local Public Goods

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• How the Source of Financing Discrimination Affects Housing Opportunities for FHA Buyers

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Sumit Agarwal

  National University of Singapore

  41 shared

• Jiro Yoshida

  Pennsylvania State University

  23 shared

• Yıldıray Yıldırım

  19 shared

• Moussa Diop

  18 shared

• Souphala Chomsisengphet

  15 shared

• Anthony B. Sanders

  11 shared

• Maxence Valentin

  Cornell University

  11 shared

• James Conklin

  11 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Real Estate (Finance)

  The University of Georgia

  1989

• Other, Real Estate (Corporate Finance and Investments)

  The University of Georgia

  1987

• B.S., Business (History)

  Wake Forest University

  1986

Awards & honors

• George Bloom Award for outstanding contributions to the fiel…
• Fellow of the Weimer School of Advanced Studies in Real Esta…
• Fellow of the Real Estate Research Institute
• Fellow of the FDIC Center for Financial Research (2006)
• President of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics As…