Biography
I am an Associate Professor in Economics at Trinity College Dublin, where I am also Director of Trinity Research in Social Sciences (TRiSS) and a PI at the Centre for Economics, Policy & History (CEPH). My research focuses on housing markets, urban economics and economic history and in particular on the intersection of those areas: how housing markets evolve in urban environments over the long run. My academic research has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Real Estate Finance & Economics, the Journal of Housing Economics, Energy Economics, and Regional Science & Urban Economics. I am a consultant to the IMF on residential property prices, a frequent contributor to national and international media on Irish housing and the broader economy and the author of the quarterly Daft.ie Reports on the Irish housing market. From 2017 to 2022, I was a Board Member of the Higher Education Authority and I was also a member of Ireland's 2022-2023 Housing Commission, advising government on housing policy.
Publications and Further Research Outputs
Peer-Reviewed Publications
Tom Gillespie, Ronan C. Lyons and Thomas K.J. McDermott, Estimating the flood risk discount: Evidence from a one-off national information shock, Environmental and Resource Economics, 88, (2), 2025, p1 - 19
Maximilian Günnewig-Mönert, Ronan C. Lyons, Housing prices, costs, and policy: The housing supply equation in Ireland since 1970, Real Estate Economics, 52, (4), 2024, p1075-1102
Ronan C. Lyons and Elisa Tirindelli, The Rise & Fall of Urban Concentration in Britain: Zipf, Gibrat and Gini across two centuries, The Annals of Regional Science, 73, 2024, p1995 - 2018
Tom Gillespie, Stephen Hynes, Ronan C. Lyons, The Value of a Sea View: Hedonic Estimates Using 3D Simulation and Natural Language Processing, Land Economics, 2023, p071522-0056R
Alan de Bromhead, Ronan C. Lyons, Social housing and the spread of population: Evidence from twentieth century Ireland, Journal of Urban Economics, 138, 2023, p103603
Richard Keely and Ronan C. Lyons, Housing Prices, Yields and Credit Conditions in Dublin since 1945, The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, 64, (3), 2022, p404--439
J. Carroll, R. Lyons and E. Denny, The Impact of Energy Cost Labelling on Property Energy Efficiency Premiums: Preliminary Results from a National RCT with daft.ie, 2019 16th International Conference on the European Energy Market (EEM), Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2019, 2019, pp1 - 5
Francesco Pilla, Salem S. Gharbia, Ronan C. Lyons, How do households perceive flood-risk? The impact of flooding on the cost of accommodation in Dublin, Ireland, Science of The Total Environment, 650, (1), 2019, p144 - 154
Andrew Linn, Ronan C. Lyons, Three Triggers? Negative Equity, Income Shocks and Institutions as Determinants of Mortgage Default, Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, 2019, p1 - 27
Rishi Ahuja, Ronan C. Lyons , The silent treatment: discrimination against same-sex relations in the sharing economy, Oxford Economic Papers, 71, (3), 2019, p564 - 576
Ronan C. Lyons, Can list prices accurately capture housing price trends? Insights from extreme markets conditions, Finance Research Letters, 30, 2019, p228 - 232
Ronan C. Lyons, Credit conditions and the housing price ratio: Evidence from Ireland's boom and bust, Journal of Housing Economics, 42, 2018, p84 - 96
Kerri Agnew and Ronan C. Lyons, The impact of employment on housing prices: Detailed evidence from FDI in Ireland, Regional Science and Urban Economics, 70, 2018, p174 - 189
Housing and Austerity: A Two-Way Street in, editor(s)Emma Heffernan, John McHale and Niamh Moore-Cherry , Debating austerity in Ireland: crisis, experience and recovery, Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, 2017, pp125 - 139, [Ronan C. Lyons]
Salem S. Gharbia, Ronan Lyons, Owen Naughton, Vincent Farrelly, Francesco Pilla, Attitudes to systemic risk: the impact of flood risk on the housing market in Dublin, 18th Mediterranean Electrotechnical Conference MELECON 2016, Cyprus, 18-20 April, IEEE, 2016
Sarah Stanley, Ronan C. Lyons, Sean Lyons, The Price Effect of Building Energy Ratings in the Dublin Residential Market, Energy Efficiency, 9, (4), 2016, p875 - 885
Ronan C. Lyons, Housing supply in Ireland since 1990: the role of costs and regulation, Journal of the Statistical & Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, 44, 2015, p141 - 155
Richard S. Grossman & Ronan C. Lyons & Kevin H. O'Rourke & Madalina A. Ursu, A monthly stock exchange index for Ireland, 1864-1930, European Review of Economic History, 18, (3), 2014, p248 - 276
Ronan C Lyons, East, west, boom and bust: the spread of house prices and rents in Ireland, 2007-2012, Journal of Property Research, 2014
Marie Hyland, Ronan C. Lyons & Sean Lyons, The value of domestic building energy efficiency - evidence from Ireland, Energy Economics, 40(C), 2013, p943 - 952
Ronan C. Lyons, The real value of house prices: what the cost of accommodation can tell policymakers, Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, 41, 2012, p71 - 91
Non-Peer-Reviewed Publications
James Carroll, Eleanor Denny, Ronan C. Lyons, Ivan Petrov, Better energy cost information changes household property investment decisions: Evidence from a nationwide experiment, Energy Economics, 139, 2024
Housing Market: Supply, Pricing and Servicing Issues in, editor(s)O'Hagan, J. and O'Toole, F. and Whelan, C. , {The Economy of Ireland: Policy Making in a Global Context, London, Bloomsbury Publishing}, 2021, pp349 - 373, [Ronan C Lyons]
Ronan C. Lyons, Ireland in 2040: Urbanization, demographics and housing, Journal of the Statistical & Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, 47, 2018, p122 - 128
Housing Market: Supply, Pricing and Servicing Issues in, editor(s)John O'Hagan and Francis O'Toole , The Economy of Ireland - Policy & Performance, Dublin, Palgrave MacMillan, 2017, pp309 - 334, [Ronan C. Lyons]
The spread of rents in Ireland, over time and space in, editor(s)Lorcan Sirr , Renting in Ireland, Dublin, Institute of Public Administration, 2014, [Ronan C. Lyons]
Shailendra Mudgal, Lorcan Lyons, François Cohen, R Lyons, D Fedrigo-Fazio, Energy performance certificates in buildings and their impact on transaction prices and rents in selected EU countries, Brussels, European Commission, 2013
Inside a Bubble & Crash: Evidence from the valuation of amenities in, editor(s)Morten Balling & Jesper Berg , Property prices and real estate financing in a turbulent world, Vienna, SUERF, 2013, pp108 - 133, [Ronan C Lyons]
Ed Burke and Ronan Lyons (editors), Next Generation Ireland, Dublin, Orpen Press, 2011
Research Expertise
Projects
- Title
- H2PINA - Historical House Prices in North America, 1900-1960
- Summary
- Building a dataset of sales and rental listings for North American housing markets, for the period 1900-1960, from newspaper archives
- Funding Agency
- Trinity College Dublin
- Date From
- May 2015
- Date To
- April 2016
Recognition
Representations
Commissioner, Irish Housing Commission
Board Member, Higher Education Authority
Council Member, Statistical & Social Inquiry Society of Ireland (SSISI) and Honorary Secretary (2018-2022). The Society has been in existence since 1847 and, through its public meetings each year, provides a unique meeting ground for discussion between decision-makers in the public service, business, trade union, academic and research communities.
Invited appearance at Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Planning, Community & Local Government, on the topic of short-term lettings
Reviewer, European Research Council (Starting Grant)
Committee member, Dublin Economics Workshop (2016-2022; Chair, 2016-2018). Responsible for organising high-profile annual policy conference, where speakers include government Ministers and top civil servants as well as international experts.
Member of the Editorial Board of Financial Research Letters
Member, Department of Housing 'Housing Needs & Demand Assessment' Advisory Group
Reviewer, American Economic Journal: Applied
Invited appearance at Oireachtas Committee on Housing and Homelessness, on the topic of addressing Ireland's housing crisis
Member, Department of Housing 'Technical Working Group on Apartment Planning Policies'
Reviewer, Journal of Housing Economics
Reviewer, Applied Economics
Reviewer, Real Estate Economics
Review, International Journal of Central Banking
Invited appearance at the Oireachtas Finance Committee, on the topic of mortgage finance and insurance
Reviewer, IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems
Reviewer, Energy Economics
Reviewer, Oxford Economic Papers
Reviewer, International Review of Financial Analysis
Journal of the Statistical & Social Inquiry Society of Ireland: Reviewer, since 2015. Editorial Board, 2018-2022.
Reviewer, Explorations in Economic History
Reviewer, Financial History Review
Reviewer, Economic History Review
Reviewer, International Tax and Public Finance
Reviewer, Journal of European Real Estate Research
Reviewer, Journal of Property Research
Reviewer, Regional Science & Urban Economics
Reviewer, European Review of Economic History
Reviewer, Economic & Social Review
Reviewer, Journal of Real Estate Finance & Economics
Reviewer, Journal of Real Estate Research
Reviewer, Yale University Press
Reviewer, African Tax Institute Working Paper Series
Reviewer, Journal of Economic History
Reviewer, Journal of Urban Economics
Reviewer, Journal of Development Economics
Reviewer, Scandinavian Economic History Review
Reviewer, Land Use Policy
Reviewer, Enterprise and Society
Reviewer, Energy Journal
Awards and Honours
Barrington Medal
Foley-Béjar Scholarship, Balliol College (Oxford)
Foundation Scholarship, Trinity College (Dublin)
Depfa Bank Scholarship
Memberships
American Economic Association
American Real Estate & Urban Economics Association
Economic History Association
Urban Economics Association
Statistical & Social Inquiry Society of Ireland
Irish Economic Association
Economic History Society
Economic & Social History Society of Ireland
Royal Economic Society
European Economic Association