IESR Associate Dean Sisi Zhang Visits Urban Institute – The Leading Think Tank in the U.S.

On November 3, 2016, our Associate Dean Prof. Sisi Zhang paid a visit to the Urban Institute – a leading think tank based in Washington D.C. that carries out economic and social policy research.

At the institute, Sisi Zhang met with the Vice President at the Urban Institute and Co-Director of Housing Finance Policy Center Laurie Goodman, Vice President for the housing finance policy Alanna McCargo, and Vice President for international development and governance Charles Cadwell.

During the meeting, Sisi Zhang introduced IESR, our research team working in urban and real estate economics as well as the research projects they have been recently carrying out. Later, Laurie Goodman presented their monthly report on real estate finance (“Housing Finance at a Glance”) which serves as a reference guide for mortgage and housing market data.

As Laurie Goodman noted, she is very interested in the development of China's real estate market and has provided some unique insights into China's housing price fluctuations, vacancy rates, market expectations and other research issues.

At the meeting, both sides agreed that they all are looking forward to mutual cooperation, and discussed through some of the possible ways of collaboration, e.g. constructing house price index, making policy reports, carrying out large-scale social surveys, organizing exchanges of our researchers, and so on.

Founded in 1968, Urban Institute consists of 12 policy centers: Center on Education Data and Policy; Center on International Development and Governance; Center on Labor, Human Services, and Population; Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy; Health Policy Center; Housing Finance Policy Center; Income and Benefits Policy Center; Justice Policy Center; Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center; Research to Action Lab; Statistical Methods Group; and Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. The Institute has been ranked as one of the top ten think tanks in the United States in a number of think tank ratings, and it also ranks among the top five social and economic policy think tanks.