Anjana Balaji, M.S.

As a senior analyst at ESI, Anjana Balaji provides economic and fiscal impact analyses, real estate pro forma modeling, market research, and planning support. Her work spans the firm’s universities and hospitals, economic development, government and public policy, and real estate practices. Since joining ESI as a research assistant, Anjana has contributed to dozens of client engagements across multiple regions, bringing analytical depth to questions at the intersection of economics, planning, and public policy.

Anjana has built expertise in the firm’s universities and hospitals practice, where her work has supported economic and social impact studies, evaluation of athletics programs, and payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) assessments for public and private research and higher education institutions’.

Anjana also brings experience across a range of public financing and development tools, including the Federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, New Jersey’s Aspire Tax Credit, and tax increment financing. Her work has included feasibility analyses for affordable and mixed-income housing projects, fiscal impact studies for large-scale mixed-use developments, revenue forecasting for tourism marketing agencies, community development planning, and benefit-cost analyses supporting federal grant applications.

Prior to joining the firm , Anjana gained research experience through her graduate studies and analytical work with nonprofit organizations focused on policy evaluation and legislative research.

Anjana earned a Master of Science in applied economics from Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor of Arts in economics from Stella Maris College. She is proficient in Python, R, STATA, and geospatial analysis tools, and is interested in the economics of housing affordability, equitable development, and how policy and investment decisions take shape at the local level.