Jordan Rappaport is a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. He joined the Bank in 1999 following completing his Ph.D. in economics at Harvard University. Jordan also holds a bachelors' degree from Brown University, from which he graduated in 1990. Jordan's research focuses on issues related to local growth. His articles for the Bank's Economic Review primarily focus on U.S. metropolitan area growth and on housing. His empirical research published in peer-reviewed journals has documented the persistence and causes of long run local population growth. His published theoretical research shows that even small costs associated with moving are sufficient to cause high persistence in net population flows and that small productivity and amenity differences can cause very large differences in local population density. Jordan is an associate editor of Regional Science and Urban Economics and the Journal of Regional Science.
Recent Speeches
Professional Journals and Books
- "Urban Growth Shadows" with David Cuberes and Klaus Desmet, Journal of Urban Economics, May 2021
- "The Settlement of the United States, 1800–2000: The Long Transition Towards Gibrat’s Law" with Klaus Desmet, Journal of Urban Economics, March 2017
- "The Increasing Importance of Quality of Life" Journal of Economic Geography, March 2009
- "Consumption Amenities and City Population Density" Regional Science and Urban Economics, November 2008
- "A Productivity Model of City Crowdedness" Journal of Urban Economics, March 2008
- "Why Do the Poor Live in Cities: The Role of Public Transportation" with Edward Glaeser and Matthew Kahn, Journal of Urban Economics, January 2008
- "Comparing Aggregate Housing Price Measures" Business Economics, October 2007
- "Moving to Nice Weather" Regional Science and Urban Economics, May 2007
Supplemental Tables | Supplemental Maps | Data File - "A Bottleneck Capital Model of Economic Development" Journal of Monetary Economics, November 2006
Supplemental Figures - "How Does Labor Mobility Affect Income Convergence?" Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, March 2005
- "Why are Population Flows So Persistent?" Journal of Urban Economics, November 2004
Supplemental Tables and Figures - "The United States as a Coastal Nation" with Jeffrey Sachs, Journal of Economic Growth, March 2003
Supplemental Tables, Figures, and Maps | Color Versions of Maps | Coastal Proximity Variables
Economic Review Articles
- Hybrid Working, Commuting Time, and the Coming Long-Term Boom in Home Construction
Volume 107, Number 4, 2022 | Map Supplement A | Map Supplement B | Map Supplement C - What to Do about Fannie and Freddie: A Primer on Housing Finance Reform
Volume 105, Number 2, 2020 - The Faster Growth of Larger, Less Crowded Locations
Fourth Quarter 2018 | Data and Code Files - Crowdedness, Centralized Employment, and Multifamily Home Construction
First Quarter 2017 | Data File | External LinkQ & A - Millennials, Baby Boomers, and Rebounding Multifamily Home Construction
Second Quarter 2015 | Presentation Slides (view in presentation mode) - The Demographic Shift From Single-Family to Multifamily Housing
Fourth Quarter 2013 | Appendix - Why Does Unemployment Differ Persistently Across Metro Areas?
Second Quarter 2012 - The Effectiveness of Homeownership in Building Household Wealth
Fourth Quarter 2010 | Appendix - The Affordability of Homeownership to Middle-Income Americans
Fourth Quarter 2008 - A Guide to Aggregate House Price Measures
Second Quarter 2007 - The Shared Fortunes of Cities and Suburbs | Data File
Third Quarter 2005 - U.S. Urban Decline and Growth, 1950 to 2000
Third Quarter 2003 - What Are the Benefits of Hosting a Major League Sports Franchise?
with Chad Wilkerson, First Quarter 2001
Research Working Papers
- The Size of U.S. Metropolitan Areas
with McKenzie Humann, RWP 21-02 - How Centralized Is U.S. Metropolitan Employment?
with Jason P. Brown, Maeve Maloney, and Aaron Smalter Hall, RWP 17-16 - Productivity, Congested Commuting, and Metro Size
RWP 16-03 - Monocentric City Redux
RWP 14-09 - A Quantitative System of Monocentric Metros
RWP 14-03 - The Settlement of the United States, 1800 to 2000: The Long Transition Towards Gibrat's Law
with Klaus Desmet, RWP 13-02 (Online Appendix) - How Does Openness to Capital Flows Affect Growth?
RWP 00-11 - Is the Speed of Convergence Constant?
RWP 00-10
Economic Bulletin
- Housing Services Inflation May Decline Only Gradually
June 2024 - Downtown Office Use Has Declined, but Some Metropolitan Areas Are Faring Better than Others
March 2024 - Home Prices Are Overvalued but Will Decline Only Gradually
February 2023 - Hybrid Officing Will Shift Where People and Businesses Decide to Locate
February 3, 2021 | Studio 10 Interview: The impact of hybrid officing - Escaping the Housing Shortage
June 2019 - Pent-Up Demand and Continuing Price Increases: The Outlook for Housing in 2018
January 2018 - The Large Unmet Demand for Housing
April 2017 - Consumer Price Inflation and Rising Rents in the West
with Michael Redmond, December 2016 - The Weak Outlook for Residential Investment
October 2016 - The Limited Supply of Homes
March 2016 - Millennials, Baby Boomers, and Rebounding Multifamily Home Construction
June 2015 - Tight Credit Conditions Continue to Constrain the Housing Recovery
July 2014 - The Long-Term Outlook for U.S. Residential Construction
December 2013
Other Working Papers
- Local Growth Empirics
Center for International Development at Harvard University Working Paper No. 23, July 1999 - Extremist Funding, Centrist Voters, and Candidate Divergence
Santa Fe Institute Working Paper No. 97-06-059E, June 1997
Additional Publications
- The Economic Consequences of Weather
The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition
Selected Data and Code
Stata Code for OLS Estimation with Spatially-Correlated Disturbances. (Based on Timothy Conley, 1999. “GMM Estimation with Cross Sectional Dependence.” Journal of Econometrics 92, 1) -- Code File