Scott Lu

I am a 4th year PhD candidate in economics at Brown University. My primary research examines the impact of urban regulation on housing supply and transportation. In addition, I am broadly interested in questions about applied econometrics, labor economics, and industrial organization.

Previously, I worked as a Senior Research Assistant at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C., in the Trade and Quantitative Studies section.

My CV.

Working Papers

Lu (2026)

Driving Out Supply: The Impact of Removing Minimum Parking Requirements on Housing

Draft coming soon

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Many cities in the US have eliminated minimum parking requirements (MPRs) as part of policy reforms aimed toward increasing housing supply, yet empirical research has primarily focused on the effects on parking instead. I quantify the causal effect of MPRs on housing supply by analyzing two MPR removals in Seattle in 2010 and 2011. Using a difference-in-differences estimator to leverage staggered within-city variation in treatment, I find that eliminating MPRs led to 20 more new multifamily housing units each year, per census block group on average. The MPR removals also operated along the extensive margin, increasing the likelihood of any new multifamily housing unit by 9%. Housing supply effects exhibit heterogeneity, with the largest increases for transit-proximal and low-income block groups.

Work in Progress

The Value of Visa Holders: Quantifying Firm Effects of the H-1B Program Under Lowered Entry Costs