Rate My Professor Amrita Kulka

Amrita Kulka is an Assistant Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick, affiliated with the Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE) as Research Theme Leader for Responsive Public Policy. She is a public and urban economist whose research examines how households choose where to live, the factors influencing housing supply, and the role of government policies in shaping location choices to address inequalities in access to neighborhoods, education, and health. Her work on the UK housing crisis, including analyses of billions of homebuyer searches, rental listings, sales data, and build patterns, has contributed to policy discussions on optimal locations for new housing developments and critiques of new town proposals. Kulka's research also covers zoning regulations, agglomeration, migration aspirations, physician shortages, and consumption smoothing.

Kulka obtained her PhD in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2020, an MSc from the same university in 2016, an MSc in Economics from Ludwig-Maximilian-University Munich in 2013, and a BSc in Economics from Humboldt-University Berlin in 2011. Before joining Warwick, she held a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the NYU Furman Center. Her publications include 'Under the (neighbor)Hood: Understanding Interactions Among Zoning Regulations' (forthcoming, Review of Economics and Statistics, with Aradhya Sood and Nick Chiumenti), 'International Applicability of Education and Migration Aspirations' (2025, Journal of Economic Geography, with Till Nikolka, Panu Poutvaara, and Silke Uebelmesser), and 'Buying Consumption Smoothing: Saving for the Future by Buying Ahead' (2023, Fiscal Studies, with J. Michael Collins). Key working papers feature 'When is Long-Run Agglomeration Possible? Evidence from County Seat Wars' (revise and resubmit, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, with Cory Smith), 'Rural Physician Shortages and Policy Intervention' (revise and resubmit, Journal of Human Resources, with Dennis B. McWeeny), and 'Mapping excess housing demand using big search data' (with Nikhil Datta and Jawad Wehbe). She has received the Juli Plant Grainger Outstanding Dissertator Fellowship, CSWEP Summer Economics Fellow award, Best Poster Award at the 2018 Population Association of America, and grants such as the Policy Support Fund 2025 and a Russell Sage Foundation research grant.