Dutch housing allowances: social housing at risk

This article deals with the vulnerability of the Dutch housing allowance scheme. This scheme can be compared with the British housing benefit. The vulnerability of the scheme has been augmented by the current less favourable economic conditions (stagnating household incomes, increasing unemployment) and the Dutch government's announcement that it plans to reduce housing allowance expenditure. Two scenarios are outlined, which may serve to resolve the danger of exploding housing allowances expenditure in the coming years. If a market‐led scenario is chosen, whereby housing associations strive to achieve market rents, the housing allowance will be transformed into a form of housing voucher, the value of which is not directly related to the actual rental price of the property. In this American‐style model, the value of the vouchers would be linked to a ‘virtual’ rent, say 40% of the average rental price in the region. The housing associations would then lose their special semi‐public status. Under the social housing model, the housing associations would retain their special status provided they aimed to achieve rents somewhat lower than the market level. The housing allowance would remain directly linked to the actual rental price. However, some marked changes would be required to render this system sustainable. The Netherlands cannot avoid having to make this choice. Cet article porte sur la vulnérabilité du régime hollandais d'aide au logement. Celui‐ci est comparable aux prestations britanniques. La fragilité du régime a été accrue par les conditions économiques actuelles moins favorables (stagnation du revenu des ménages, augmentation du chômage) et par l'annonce du gouvernement néderlandais relative à la réduction prévue des dépenses d'allocation‐logement. Sont présentés deux scénarios susceptibles de limiter le risque d'explosion des dépenses d'allocations dans les années à venir. Si l'option choisie est un scénario de marché où les associations pour le logement luttent pour atteindre les loyers du marché, l'allocation‐logement se transformera en ‘bon’ dont la valeur ne sera pas directement liée au montant réel du loyer. Selon ce modèle de type américain, la valeur des ‘bons’ sera fonction d'un loyer ‘virtuel’, soit environ 40% du prix moyen dans la région; les associations perdraient alors leur statut particulier semi‐public. Selon le modèle de logement social, elles conserveraient leur statut, à condition qu'elles cherchent à atteindre des loyers légèrement inférieurs au niveau du marché; l'allocation‐logement serait alors directement liée au montant réel du loyer. Toutefois, pour que le régime subsiste, il faudrait procéder à d'importants changements. Les Pays‐Bas ne peuvent s'épargner ce choix.     

Alternative housing concepts and the benefits of public housing programs

Almost all previous studies analyzing the benefits and consumption effects of public housing programs have used aggregation theorems to construct composite goods “housing” and “all other goods.” In this paper we show that, if it is more realistically assumed that households have preferences defined on housing characteristics, benefits estimated using the composite approach are upward biased. Some empirical work suggests that the bias is large. We therefore strongly advise to take into account the composition of the bundle of housing attributes provided under a public housing program when evaluating the program's economic effects.     

日本公营住宅的运作体系

在日本国民的实际生活中,公营住宅为解决低收入家庭的居住问题起了不容低估的作用。在政府的主导下,日本形成了以公营住宅、公团住宅、公库住宅为三大支柱的公共住宅供应体系。政府在财政、金融和税收制度上,对公营住宅采取了相应的措施,对解决日本住宅短缺问题起到了举足轻重的作用。     

The end of public housing as we know it: public housing policy,labor regulation and the US city

In this article I argue that the US public housing policy, as codified by the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998 (QHWRA), is helping to reconfigure the racial and class structure of many inner cities. By promoting the demolition of public housing projects and replacement with mixed‐income housing developments, public housing policy is producing a gentrified inner‐city landscape designed to attract middle and upper‐class people back to the inner city. The goals of public housing policy are also broadly consonant with those of welfare reform wherein the ‘workfare’ system helps to bolster and produce the emergence of contingent low‐wage urban labor markets. In a similar manner, I argue that public housing demonstration programs, such as the ‘Welfare‐to‐Work’ initiative, encourage public housing residents to join the lowwage labor market. Although the rhetoric surrounding the demolition of public housing emphasizes the economic opportunities made available by residential mobility, I argue that former public housing residents are simply being relocated into private housing within urban ghettos. Such a spatial fix to the problems of unemployment and poverty will not solve the problems of inner‐city poverty. Will it take another round of urban riots before we seriously address the legacy of racism and discrimination that has shaped the US city? Cet article démontre que la politique du logement public américaine, telle que la réglemente la Loi de 1998, Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act, contribue à remodeler la structure par races et classes de nombreux quartiers déshérités des centres‐villes. En favorisant la démolition d'ensembles de logements sociaux et leur remplacement par des complexes urbanisés à loyers variés, la politique publique génère un embourgeoisement des centres‐villes destinéà y ramener les classes moyennes et supérieures. Les objectifs de la politique du logement rejoignent largement ceux de la réforme sociale où le système de ‘l'allocation conditionnelle’ facilite et nourrit la création de marchés contingents du travail à bas salaires. De même, les programmes expérimentaux de logements publics, telle l'initiative Welfare‐to‐Work (De l'aide sociale au travail) poussent les habitants des logements sociaux à rejoindre le marchéde la main d'?uvre à bas salaires. Bien que les discours autour de la démolition des logements sociaux mettent en avant les ouvertures économiques créées par la mobilité résidentielle, leurs anciens habitants sont simplement en train d'être déplacés vers des logements privés situés dans des ghettos urbains. Ce genre de solution spatiale aux problèmes du chômage et de la pauvreté ne viendra pas à bout du dénuement des quartiers déshérités du centre. Faudra‐t‐il une autre série d'émeutes urbaines pour que l'on aborde sérieusement l'héritage de racisme et de discrimination qui a façonné les villes américaines?     

中国公共住宅供应体系及其完善的框架思路

从总量、结构、保障范围等方面分析了当前我国公共住宅供应体系存在的问题与不足,并提出了完善公共住宅供应体系的框架思路.     

公共租赁房退出机制及其政策选择

我国正在大力发展公共租赁房,但对公共租赁房退出机制的理论研究目前仍比较缺乏。在梳理相关文献的基础上,运用博弈论和比较研究的方法,指出政府管理部门应采取的策略,并对公共租赁房不同退出机制的效果进行了分析。结合我国的实际情况,认为应采取自愿退出、强制退出和激励退出相结合的方式创新我国公共租赁房的退出机制。     

Voluntary income clustering and the demand for housing and local public goods

Economists have suggested that wealthy communities use “fiscal zoning” in order to protect their tax bases. Such zoning would be unnecessary if tastes for local public goods were sufficiently correlated with tastes for the taxed good, residential property. The common notion of “bid rent” can be extended to derive a formula to show under what conditions fiscal zoning is redundant. Our information about the values of the relevant parameters is not sufficiently precise, however, to determine whether these conditions are met.     

公租房小区的特征及治理

公租房小区有三个特征:一是租房者和买房者的混居;二是政府在公租房小区有着相当比重的经济利益;三是居民都是社会的收入中下阶层。公租房小区要避免变成贫民窟,其关键之一是中下阶层的居民能够也愿意参与到小区的治理中来。在此基础上,公租房小区的治理应该强调以小区居民代表为主体组成小区管理委员会,居民代表由居民大会选举产生,买房者的投票权高于租房者,政府代表拥有一定比例的投票权。     

Public housing units vs. housing vouchers: Accessibility,local public goods,and welfare

We develop a general equilibrium model of residential choice and study the effects of two housing aid policies, public housing units and housing vouchers. Land is differentiated by both residential accessibility and local public goods, and the provision levels of local public goods are determined by property tax revenues and neighborhood compositions. Households differ in their incomes and preferences for local public goods. Housing aid policies are financed by general income taxes. We discuss how the location of public housing units is a fundamental policy variable, in addition to the numbers and sizes of units, and argue that vouchers not only cause less distortion for social welfare compared to public housing, but may also improve overall welfare.     

Price dynamics in public and private housing markets in Singapore

In down-payment constrained housing consumption models, increases in house prices could trigger household mobility decisions in housing markets. This study empirically tests house price dynamics associated with the mobility of households in the public resale and private housing markets in Singapore. The results show that stochastic permanent breaks were found in the public housing resale prices and private housing prices. The relative prices drift apart occasionally, but mean-revert to a long-run fundamental equilibrium. Error correction mechanisms and lagged public housing prices were also found to have significant explanatory effects for price changes in the private housing markets. The results support the hypothesis that household mobility creates co-movements of prices in public and private housing submarkets in the long run.     

中外公共租赁住房租金定价机制比较研究

在简要介绍公共租赁住房概念与内涵的基础上,总结并比较了国内外公共租赁住房租金定价模式的特点与异同,分析了当前我国公共租赁住房的租金定价面临的难点与困惑,对我国公共租赁住房租金定价的作用机制与定价方法的优劣进行了探讨。从定价基准、补贴力度、保障形式和配套政策等方面总结了国内外公共租赁住房租金定价的经验,并就制度设计、操作流程、管理体制、价格机制、法律法规以及金融制度等方面提出了相关配套措施。     

The impact of public regulation on housing quality and on structural changes

This paper represents a theoretical investigation of profit maximizing behavior of a landlord under rent control. The situation envisioned is one that the landlord owns, free and clear, either two housing units ready to merge or one large one ready to convert into two small ones; in each case the units are already in place, such that capital costs are sunk and treated as bygones. Each unit has a technology of production of housing services with a fixed input of quantity of space (shelter) and a variable input of quality, that is affected by physical ageing (non-controllable) and by maintenance (controllable). At starting time t₀, we have a state of quality and a historical state of initial quality Q?_i, at the time the building was built, with the implicit constraint that Q_i(t) < Q?_i, for all t> t₀. The analysis addresses the general question of housing structural changes—conversion or merger—and how these changes are being accelerated under the threat of rent control.     

Nonlinear budget constraints and consumer demand: An application to public programs for residential housing

This study presents a methodology for exploiting the nonlinear hedonic nature of housing prices to estimate the compensated demands of households for particular housing attributes. The methodology is employed to provide Hicksian benefit measures of a particular housing subsidy program typical of those undertaken recently in developing countries.     

Distributional aspects of public rental housing and rent control policies in Spain

This paper studies the importance of the economic advantages and some distributional consequences generated by public and subsidized rental housing as well as rent control policies in Spain. Individual benefits are defined as the difference between the rent the protected dwellings would have in the market, minus the rent actually paid for them. The market valuation is obtained with an hedonic function estimated for the uncontrolled private sector. Data for the Madrid Metropolitan Area in 1974 show that for both policies, benefits are of considerable importance, while its distribution among beneficiaries is very unsatisfactory according to horizontal and vertical equity criteria.     

The urban housing market: A new approach for estimating demand for housing by dwelling type

A new approach for estimating urban housing demand by dwelling type is suggested and tested empirically. The approach is based on the assumption that households choose their residential location and dwelling type in a way to maximize the communal utility. The model used is the Dynamic General Linear Expenditure System which allows determination of (1) urban housing demand by dwelling type, and (2) expenditure and own- and cross-price elasticities (compensated and uncompensated).     

楼市回暖任重道远

楼市什么时候回暖?笔者认为,眼下的楼市,回暖并不是开发商或购房者单方所能决定的,一定是双方博弈的结果,而两种力量的平衡点就是楼市底部。一个行业的健康发展,需要买卖双方的共赢。然而,在房地产行业,多数开发商往往最大限度地把升值预期套现,拿走利润而把风险留给购房者(尤其是商业地产和投资型住宅)。这种行为导致了楼市买卖双方的对立。所以,当楼市低迷、