Prof Gabriel Ahlfeldt is Professor of Urban Economics and Land Development, having joined the Department of Geography and Environment in October 2009 as a Lecturer. He is the director of the MSc REEF.

Prof Ahlfeldt is editor of Regional Science and Urban Economics, associate editor of the Journal of Regional Science, an Affiliate of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP), the Spatial Economics Research Centre (SERC), and the CESifo network.

In his research, Dr Ahlfeldt is interested in how various agglomeration forces shape the spatial distribution of economic activity. His research also analyses the impact of various spatial policies on local house prices, labour markets, political preferences and urban structure.

As of 2018, Prof Ahlfeldt has published 39 articles in peer-refereed journals, among them general interest economics journals such as Econometrica, Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal or the European Economics Association, or Economic Journal, as well as in a wide range of urban economics, economic geography, regional science, urban planning and urban studies journals (e.g. Journal of Urban Economics, Regional Science and Urban Economics, Journal of Economic Geography, Journal of Regional Science Environment and Planning A, Regional Studies, Urban Studies, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, among others).

His results have also been disseminated to a wider public audience via television, radio and webTV (ARD, BBC, HR-Info, RBB, 3Sat UBrainTV) as well as various print media (e.g. BZ, The Boston Globe, The Economist, The Financial Times, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, The Telegraph, The Observer, Handelsblatt, Der Tagesspiegel, Welt, Wirtschaftswoche). 

His research has been supported by the Fritz-Thyssen-Foundation, the German Science Foundation (DFG), the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and the Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines. His expertise has recently been commissioned by English Heritage, the OECD, WRI, and the Darmstadt Chamber of Commerce.