HERMAN DONNER

PROFESSIONAL BIOGRAPHY: 

I am the Director of the Golub Capital Social Impact Lab, at Stanford Graduate School of Business. We are a team of faculty, researchers and students that leverage technology for social impact.​

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My background is in real estate and urban economics, and I have researched various aspects of real estate markets using quantitative methods. I have published papers on topics such as the pricing of foreclosed properties, the income-distributional effects of rent control, informational asymmetries on the housing market and office rent determinants. I have publications in journals such as the Journal of Housing Economics, the Journal of Real Estate Research, the Journal of Housing and the Built Environment and Stockholm University Law Review.

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Since 2017, I have conducted applied research that broadly relates to how technology impacts society. Recent work includes an analysis of the impact of earned wage access on household financial wellbeing, and a paper that outlines how the internet of things (IoT) will impact business models across different industries.

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Prior to my current role, I was the Research Director of the Digital Cities Corporate Affiliate Program at Stanford School of Engineering. In that role, I was a liaison between Stanford labs and over 20 corporations - including 3M, Bain, Medtronic, Jones LangLaSalle, Verizon and Visa - developing partnerships, identifying opportunities and managing research projects across all fields of research. In this role, I wrote a report on smart city technologies for mobility on behalf of Visa Inc, which was presented at the 2019 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

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I am a Swedish citizen, and I have been engaged in several policy-related research projects in my Sweden, such as co-authoring a report on the distributional effects of rent control for the Swedish Fiscal Policy Council (a government agency that advises the Swedish government on fiscal policy), and developing the now adopted best practice guidelines for appraisal of development land for the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) in Sweden. 

I am engaged in local politics in my hometown of  Vaxholm, Sweden, as a twice elected member of city council (elections of 2014 and 2018) and a member of the building committee. I was the Moderate party candidate for chairman of the city executive committee (mayor) in the 2018 election. My primary drivers are improving the quality of schools, infrastructure, and new housing development. 

I hold a PhD in Real Estate Economics from KTH Royal Institute of Technology. I have been a Postdoctoral Researcher at at Stanford School of Engineering, where I also conducted research during my PhD studies. I have also been a visiting scholar at the Center for Real Estate and Urban Analysis at the George Washington University School of Business. 

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I hold BSc and MSc degrees with real estate finance concentrations from KTH Royal Institute of Technology and have studied law at Stockholm University.