Author Archives: n4p5t3r

Context

Housing is recognized as a fundamental human right and has direct impacts on multiple
dimensions of well-being, including health, subjective well-being, labor mobility, and
poverty reduction. Although the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have made
substantive progress in the last decades in terms of structural quality and access to basic
services, significant challenges remain: high rental costs for lower-income households,
constraints on the supply of formal housing, informal settlements, and limited access to
financing. The housing deficit reflects both structural supply-side problems—such as rising
land prices, insufficient service coverage, and limited territorial planning—and demand-
side constraints stemming from inequality and low incomes.

CAF has positioned housing as a strategic priority through the development of its 2023–
2026 Housing Strategy, which seeks to improve access to adequate housing, especially for
vulnerable populations, while ensuring attributes such as durability, urban integration,
security of tenure, and affordability. A central pillar of this strategy is the generation of data
and knowledge, given the region’s historical deficit of information and studies on housing
markets and the evaluation of housing policies.

This call aims to support research that generates rigorous and policy-relevant evidence,
with special interest in studies of policies improving access to housing by low-income
families.

Objective

Through this call, CAF seeks to fund research that provides original and rigorous empirical
evidence on housing markets and housing policies in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In total, up to five research projects will be funded according to the following criteria:

• Up to 3 projects on topics of housing markets and housing policy in Latin America and the caribbean (see non-exhaustive list below). The selection of these 3 projects will prioritize academic contribution. They may or may not include the study or evaluation of specific policies. They will receive US$ 20.000 and be invited to present their progress at the 2026 workshop of LACEA’s Urban Economic Association LAURBAN to be held in Montevideo in December 2026. Travel and accommodation costs will be covered for one author per selected paper. These projects must produce a paper to be published after 16 months in CAF Working Papers series.

• Up to 2 projects evaluating specific housing programs in Latin America and the Caribbean. The selection of these two projects will prioritize policy relevance and a plausible causal study of the impacts of a housing policy or housing infrastructure intervention (i.e. water, sanitation, trash collection, etc) in a country of Latin America and the Caribbean. These projects will receive US$ 15.000 and must produce a paper to be published in CAF Policy Papers series after 16 months.

Priority Topics

Proposals may focus on the following non-exhaustive list of topics:

Rental Markets

• Regulatory frameworks, formalization costs, institutional barriers.
• Evaluation of public policies subsidizing rental payments or providing rental
  guarantees.
• Market power, competition, and price dynamics in rental markets.
• Informality in rental markets and its interaction with tenant protection policies.
• Short-term rentals, digital platforms, and their effects on long-term rental supply
  and prices.
• Rental markets, tenure security, and housing stability over the life cycle

Housing supply

• Effects of land-use regulation, zoning, and urban planning on housing supply and
• affordability.
• Market power and competition in the real estate development and housing
  construction sectors.
• Constraints related to land availability, infrastructure provision, and access to urban
  services.
• The role of public land, social housing programs, and public–private partnerships in
  expanding supply.
• Construction costs, productivity in the construction sector, and barriers to
  innovation.
• Climate risk and insurance markets in formal and informal settings

Housing demand

• Effects of income shocks, labor market conditions, and macroeconomic volatility
• on housing demand.
• Internal and international migration: effects on housing demand and barriers to
  housing access for migrants.
• Functioning of mortgage markets and mortgage-related policies.
• Alternative housing finance mechanisms beyond traditional mortgages (e.g.
  guarantees, microfinance, rental finance) and their effects on access, affordability,
  and household welfare.
• Demographic transition and housing demand: household formation, household
  size, housing size, and specialized housing for the elderly.
• Effects of remote work and digitalization on housing demand within and between
  cities.

Housing informality

• Causes and consequences of informal settlements and informal housing
• arrangements.
• Evaluation of policies dealing with housing informality, such as slum upgrading,
  relocation, regularization, and titling.
• Interactions between informality, access to services, and labor market outcomes.
• Climate and environmental risks in informal settlements.

Economic effects of housing

• Effects of access to adequate housing on well-being (health, education, subjective
• well-being).
• Impacts of housing conditions and location on labor market outcomes, productivity,
  and spatial mismatch.
• Housing affordability, inequality, and intergenerational mobility.
• Macroeconomic and fiscal implications of housing policies.
• Housing, segregation, and urban inequality.
• Aspects of taxation related to housing: value capture, property tax.

Application

The amount will be disbursed through a single consultancy contract in the name of a team
member or an institution. A detailed budget is not required at this stage.

How to apply

Applications must be submitted through this online form by March 8, 2026 at 11:59 p.m.
(Buenos Aires time). The application must include the following documents in PDF format
(in Spanish or English):

• Research proposal: A document of no more than 1,500 words that presents the
• research question and describes the methodology and data to be used. Particular
• consideration will be given to the clarity of the research question and the adequacy
• of the model, data, and empirical strategy to address it. Proposals exceeding the
• maximum length will not be evaluated. Projects must generate original knowledge.
• If the project has already started, the proposal should indicate its current stage of
• development (initial, mid-progress, or advanced). Advanced proposals may receive
• partial funding.
• Research team: A list including the name, institutional affiliation, and email address
  of each team member.
• CV of the principal investigator.

Selected proposals must adhere to the following tentative timeline:

• 17 March, 2025: Notification of selected proposals and contracting process.
• November, 2026: Submission of a first draft of the working paper.
• December 2026: (only 3 of the papers) presentation of research progress at
  workshop. Travel and accommodation costs will be covered for one author per
  selected paper.
• May 2027: Final submission of the research paper and a blog post summarizing the
  main findings. The final version will be published in CAF’s Working Paper or Policy
  papers Series, without prejudice to the authors’ right to publish the paper in
  academic journals.

Selection Committee

• The jury will be composed of: Guillermo Alves (CAF), Verónica Amarante (CAF), Verónica Frisancho (CAF), Jorge de la Roca (University of Southern California) and Pablo López (CAF).

Contact

If you have any questions not addressed in the documentation, please contact us at:
investigacion@caf.com.

Link here