Paavo Monkkonen is Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. He researches and writes about how policies and markets shape urbanization, social segregation, and housing affordability in cities around the world. His scholarship ranges from studies of large-scale national housing finance programs to analyses of local land use regulations, and uses comparison to derive novel insights. Past projects include studies in Argentina, Brazil, China, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and the United States.Professor Monkkonen’s research has been published in outlets such as the Journal of the American Planning Association, the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, the Journal of Urban Economics, Urban Studies, World Development, and the Journal of Peasant Studies. He has received research funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Urban Land Institute, the Regional Studies Association, and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. He is currently studying the implementation of California’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing law and the social housing system in France.At UCLA Luskin, Paavo teaches courses on housing policy, land value capture, applied microeconomics, research methods, and global urban segregation. He launched the Latin American Cities Initiative, Ciudades, to develop and deepen knowledge networks among students, educators, and professionals in the arena of urban planning and policy in South, Central, and North America.Paavo completed a Master of Public Policy at the School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a PhD in City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. He was Assistant Professor of Urban Planning at the University of Hong Kong from 2009 to 2012, visiting scholar at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico in 2015, visiting researcher at Sciences Po Paris from 2023-2024, and a fellow of the Paris Institute of Advanced Studies from 2024-2025.LinkedIn profileFollow him on bskySELECTED PUBLICATIONSMeaningful Action: Evaluating Local Government Plans to Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing in California. Monkkonen, Paavo, Aaron Barrall, and Aurora Echavarria. 2024. Housing Policy Debate, forthcoming.Built out cities? A new approach to measuring land use regulation. Monkkonen, Paavo, Michael Manville, and Michael Lens. 2024. Journal of Housing Economics, forthcoming.Do Land Use Plans Affirmatively Further Fair Housing? Measuring Progress. Monkkonen, Paavo, Michael Lens, Moira O’Neill, Christopher Elmendorf, Greg Preston and Raine Robichaud. 2023. Journal of the American Planning Association, forthcoming.The Heterogeneous Impacts of Widespread Upzoning: Lessons from Auckland, New Zealand. Cheung, William, and Edward Yiu. 2023. Urban Studies, 61(5), 943-967.Does Discretion Delay Development? Manville, Michael, Paavo Monkkonen, Shane Phillips, and Nolan Gray. 2022. The Impact of Approval Pathways on Multifamily Housing’s Time to Permit. Journal of the American Planning Association, 89(3): 336-347.Unwanted Housing: Localism and Politics of Housing Development. Manville, Michael, and Paavo Monkkonen. 2021. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 44(2): 685–700.Opposition to Development or Opposition to Developers? Experimental Evidence on Attitudes towards New Housing. Monkkonen, Paavo, and Michael Manville. 2019. Journal of Urban Affairs, 41(8): 1123-1141.
Empty Houses across North America: Housing Finance and Mexico’s Vacancy Crisis. Monkkonen, Paavo. 2019. Urban Studies, 57(10): 2080-2097.
Where are property rights worth more? Assessing variation in the value of deeds across cities in Mexico Monkkonen, Paavo. 2016. World Development, 88: 67-78.Do Strict Land Use Regulations make Metropolitan Areas more Segregated by Income? Michael Lens and Paavo Monkkonen. 2016. Journal of the American Planning Association, 82(1): 6-21.Land Use Regulations and the Value of Land and Housing: An Intra-Metropolitan Analysis Kok, Nils, Paavo Monkkonen and John M. Quigley. 2014. Journal of Urban Economics, 81(3): 136–148.Innovative Measurement of Spatial Segregation: Comparative Evidence from Hong Kong and San Francisco. Monkkonen, Paavo and Xiaohu Zhang. 2014. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 47(3): 99-11.Land Use Regulations, Compliance, and Land Markets in Argentina Monkkonen, Paavo and Lucas Roconi. 2013. Urban Studies, 50(10): 1951-1969.Housing Finance Reform and Increasing Socioeconomic Segregation in Mexico Monkkonen, Paavo. 2012. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 36(4): 757-772.Economic Restructuring, Urban Growth, and Short-term Trades: The Spatial Dynamics of the Hong Kong Housing Market, 1992-2008 Monkkonen, Paavo, Kelvin SK Wong, and Jaclene Begley. 2012. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 42(3): 396-406.The Demand for Land Regularization: Theory and Evidence from Tijuana, Mexico Monkkonen, Paavo. 2012. Urban Studies, 49(2): 270-287.The Housing Transition in Mexico: Expanding Access to Housing Finance Monkkonen, Paavo. 2011. Urban Affairs Review, 47(5): 672-695.
