Michael Ball, Henley Business School, University of Reading

Every Thursday a business school professor, an expert in his or her field, will define five key terms on FT Lexicon, our online economics, business and finance glossary.

Michael Ball is professor of urban and property economics in the School of Real Estate and Planning at Henley Business School, University of Reading. His research interests include housing studies, urban economics, commercial property investment and real estate markets, urban regeneration, land-use planning, urban history and construction economics.

Previous academic posts include professor of urban economics at London South Bank University and senior lecturer in economics at Birkbeck College, University of London. He has been a visiting academic at several universities in Europe, the USA, Latin America and Australia.

He has published extensively, co-authored the textbook, the Economics of Commercial Property Markets and is author of the annual RICS European Housing Review, which is the prime publication on European housing markets.

He was lead panel member of the Housing Market and Planning Analysis (HMPA) Panel of the Department of Communities and Local Government from 2007 to 2010 and has advised many other public and private bodies.

He co-chairs the economics group of the European Network for Housing Research.

The five terms defined by Michael Ball on FT Lexicon this week are:

House price index

Quality-adjusted house prices

Housing rent index

Owner occupied retirement housing (OORH)

Housing supply responsiveness

Compiled by Emmanuelle Smith

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