Ing. Josef Klement, Ph.D.

Brief Introduction

Josef Klement

is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Economics, Prague University of Economics and Business, specializing in the economics of government intervention and its unintended consequences on individual incentives and the functioning of market mechanisms. In both his teaching and research, he applies the theories of the Austrian School of Economics and Public Choice theory to various aspects of the state and its representatives, with a particular focus on the housing market and its declining affordability in the Czech Republic.

He focuses on the factors contributing to declining housing affordability, including zoning and construction permitting processes, the NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) attitude, pressure from interest groups, monetary policy, as well as traditional socio-economic influences. In 2022, he led a research team examining the impact of the NIMBY phenomenon on residential development in major cities. The study confirmed that, in addition to a traditional aversion to risk, envy and perceptions of unfair treatment also play a significant role. The research findings were published in the prestigious journal European Planning Studies and received notable attention within the academic community.

Thanks to his extensive experience in project activities, during which he contributed to numerous development and other projects, Josef Klement has been able to observe the increasing administrative and other demands placed on universities and their staff in connection with these projects. In 2023, together with his colleague Jan Kozák, he collaborated on research focused on the bureaucratization of Czech universities. The study revealed how the rise in administrative workload drains time and energy that academics should be devoting to teaching and research. The results were published in Higher Education, one of the top 10% journals in its field (Q1 D1). Josef Klement and Jan Kozák also presented their findings in an invited lecture for the College for Social Sciences and Humanities in Essen, Germany, as well as at other academic forums.

In 2020, Josef Klement was awarded first place in the Dean’s Award Competition of the Faculty of Economics in the doctoral category for his paper titled “Building Control Regulation and Housing Affordability.” In 2022, he was recognized for his paper “The Impact of Spatial Regulation on the Supply of New Housing in the Czech Republic.” In the same year, he received the prestigious Josef Hlávka Award, which is granted for outstanding scientific and academic achievements.

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List of publications of Dr. Josef Klement can be found here.