Nathaniel Baum-Snow
2020-2022

Nathaniel Baum-Snow is a Professor of Economic Analysis and Policy at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago in 2005, after which he was in the Economics Department at Brown University until 2015. Baum-Snow is a Managing Editor at the Journal of Urban Economics. Baum-Snow’s research investigates reasons for levels of and changes in the spatial organization of population and economic activity in urban areas. He has evaluated the roles that various types of transportation infrastructure have played in generating changes in urban form in the United States and China. Baum-Snow has also investigated the reasons why workers earn more and have more dispersed wages in larger cities and how these explanations help us to understand the productivity advantages of density. He currently holds a SSHRC Insight Grant to continue this line of research using Canadian administrative data on firms and workers. Other research examines the causes and consequences of neighborhood change in U.S. cities and how racial interactions in schools and low income housing have influenced urban change at metropolitan area and neighborhood spatial scales in the United States. He has taught PhD, MBA and undergraduate level courses in urban and real estate economics and microeconomic theory.