Sofia Franco is an Associate Professor (Adjunct) at Nova SBE. Sofia has also been a consultant to the World Bank and to the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education, Maryland, USA, on topics related to urban development and zoning policies. Sofia is an applied microeconomist with a research agenda that lies at the boundaries of environmental, urban and transportation economics, and uses state-of-the-art econometric and computable general equilibrium methods, as well as geographical information tools.  Most of her work consists of theoretical and empirical assessments of major public policy issues. Sofia has published scholarly articles dealing with the efficiency and distributional impacts of anti-sprawl policies, urban sprawl and land use change in the United States. Additional work has focused on the impacts of parking policies on urban sprawl, land consumption and real estate prices. A further branch of her research has examined the impacts of urban growth controls on forest management practices. Her research has appeared in peer-reviewed academic journals and has also been presented in several major international conferences.

Current research interests include: Urban Economics and Real Estate, Spatial Analysis with GIS tools, Transportation Economics and Environmental Economics. Urban Amenities, Land use Policies, Urban Sprawl, Transportation Policies, Environmental Impacts of Urban Growth and Form.