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A member of the MIT faculty since 1972, Professor Wheaton helped to develop the field of urban economics by pioneering the theory of how land, location, and housing markets jointly operate. He also specializes in the problems of urban infrastructure and local government finance. He has written numerous articles in scholarly journals throughout the world, and is a co-author of Urban Economics and Real Estate Markets, the first textbook to cover both real estate applications and economics. William Wheaton is a Professor Emeritus holding a joint appointment in the Departments of Economics and Center for Real Estate. An authority on regional economics, Professor Wheaton is a principal in a consulting firm that provides market analyses for development companies active in the market for commercial space.
In the last few years, Professor Wheaton has been actively applying economic research to the real estate industry. He helped organize the MIT Center for Real Estate, and taught the program’s core course in Real Estate Economics for over 30 years. He was the first economist to apply econometric methods to the forecasting of real estate markets, and is a principal in Torto Wheaton Research, a globally-recognized real estate consulting firm that works with the real estate industry to better understand the fluctuations and trends of the market.Professor Wheaton received a B.A. in Economics from Princeton University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Over the years he has worked with many US governmental agencies, as well as the World Bank and the United Nations. Closer to home, he has been a member of the planning commissions in each of the several towns where he has lived.
