The short-run comparative statics of a rental housing market

This paper examines the short-run effects of changes in exogenous variables (including several government policies) on the schedule relating market equilibrium rent to quality level. The basic model differs from Sweeney (Econometrica, 42, 147–167 (1974)) by use of a bid rent closed city approach rather than a supply and demand (partially) open city approach. The mathematics changes completely, the analytics simplify, and the results change somewhat. Housing is treated as a durable quality differentiated good, but frictional forces and the multidimensionality of the housing package are ignored. The exception is an extension to a monocentric city context, so that housing units vary in both quality and location.     

Estimation and policy implications of rental housing demand

The demand for rental housing using the Annual Housing Survey SMSA sample for 1977 is estimated. The principal determinants of rental housing demand, namely housing price and permanent/transitory income, are computed through spatially varying hedonic price techniques and instrumental variables methods (relating to human and nonhuman capital), respectively. Based on the demand estimation results, impacts of hypothetical cash and rent subsidy programs are analyzed in terms of “housing” and “welfare” effects. It is found that a rent subsidy achieves considerably larger effects than does a cash subsidy.     

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 effects of partial-coverage rent control on the price and quantity of rental housing

Rent control is widely used, but its effects are little understood. A two-sector model is provided that predicts the effects of rent control on both the price and quantity of rental housing and allows estimates of the size of these effects with limited amounts of data from jurisdictions which have controlled and uncontrolled sectors. Among other things, the model indicates the relationship between the price of rental housing in the absence of rent control and controlled and uncontrolled rent levels under a partial-coverage regime.     

A commodity hierarchy model of the rental housing market

This paper presents and analyzes a theoretical model of the rental housing market which addresses the durable-good nature and the heterogeneous nature of housing, while focusing on the quality distribution of housing units. Units of different qualities are viewed as distinct substitute commodities. New construction rates, deterioration rates, rental prices, and stocks are considered to be endogenous. Equilibrium concepts are introduced; both the long-run and short-run equilibria are shown to exist and to be unique. Comparative static results are established. The model's utility is demonstrated by its application to the analysis of several housing market programs.     

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。     

Geography of immigrant clusters in global cities: a case study of San Francisco

Cities throughout the world – particularly global cities – are becoming increasingly heterogeneous as a result of international migration movements. During the past three decades, the influx of immigrants into metropolitan areas like New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco has increased demand for housing, exacerbating the already tight housing markets in these cities. This article focuses on the spatial distribution and housing conditions of immigrants in San Francisco using primarily the 2000 US census data on population and housing down to the census tract level. Building on past research on ethnic enclaves and communities, this article applies spatial analysis methods to identify clusters where Chinese, Filipino and Mexican households – the largest foreign‐born groups in San Francisco – live. The article argues that different immigrant groups show distinct spatial clustering patterns and that there are significant variations in housing outcomes for immigrants within and outside of ethnic clusters. These differences are largely in the direction predicted by the spatial assimilation theory. However, findings such as the high incidence of homeownership within Chinese and Filipino clusters suggest that contemporary immigrants do not necessarily view ethnic clusters as transitory. These findings help to confirm other recent studies showing that immigrants are now spatially clustered in ways that may no longer fit theoretical models derived from the settlement patterns of late nineteenth‐century immigrants. The article contributes to literature concerned with ethnic clusters in US inner cities and the housing conditions of immigrants in global cities. A travers le monde, les villes, surtout les villes planétaires, sont de plus en plus hétérogènes à cause des mouvements migratoires internationaux. Au cours des trois dernières décennies, l'afflux de migrants vers les zones métropolitaines comme New York, Los Angeles et San Francisco a accru la demande de logements, resserrant les marchés déjàétroits dans ces grandes villes. L'article s'attache à la répartition spatiale et aux conditions de logement des immigrants à San Francisco à partir, essentiellement, de données provenant du recensement américain 2000 sur la population et l'habitat par régions sociales. S'inspirant de recherches antérieures sur les communautés et enclaves ethniques, l'étude applique les méthodes d'analyse spatiale pour identifier les regroupements de foyers chinois, philippins et mexicains (groupes d'étrangers les plus nombreux à San Francisco). Les différents groupes d'immigrants présentent des modèles d'agrégation spatiale distincts et leur logement varie considérablement selon que les populations se trouvent dans ou hors des regroupements ethniques. Ces divergences traduisent largement l'orientation prévue par la théorie de l'assimilation spatiale. Toutefois, des résultats tels que le poids de l'accession à la propriété dans les groupes chinois et philippins suggèrent que les immigrants actuels ne jugent pas forcément ces regroupements ethniques comme transitoires. Ainsi sont corroborées d'autres études récentes montrant que les immigrants sont désormais regroupés dans l'espace selon des modèles qui ne correspondent plus aux types théoriques dérivés des schémas d'implantation de la fin du dix‐neuvièmesiècle. L'article contribue au débat sur les regroupements ethniques dans les quartiers déshérités américains et sur les conditions de logement des immigrants dans les villes planétaires.     

The landlord's dilemma: Asking rent strategies in a heterogeneous housing market

This paper investigates the asking rent behavior of a landlord with a vacancy who faces a known, downward sloping rental probability function. The shape of this function is shown to be strongly dependent on the form of the underlying acceptance rent distribution and on the rate at which prospective tenants visit the unit. A particular family of asking rent strategies is examined. It is shown that all of these strategies exhibit a declining sequence of asking rents, and that the landlord in choosing among them must balance his desire for rental income against his aversion to waiting.     

Subtle discrimination in the rental housing market: Evidence from e-mail correspondence with landlords

We find that landlords practice subtle discrimination in the rental housing market through the use of language associated with describing and viewing a unit, inviting further correspondence, making a formal greeting, and using polite language when replying to e-mail inquiries from a white name more often than to an African American name, they also send longer e-mails and respond quicker to white names.     

A theoretical and empirical analysis of the length of residency discount in the rental housing market

We present an analysis of occupancy discounts and suggest a decomposition of the discount into two components, a “sit” discount and a length of residency discount. Data from the national longitudinal survey of the Annual Housing Survey in which 75,000 housing units from around the United States were followed from 1974 to 1977 are used to obtain consistent and efficient estimates of those discounts. The econometric models account for censoring in the data by endogenously treating the tenant's staying decision. The estimation indicates that neither discount is significant. This result is contrary to the commonly accepted result in the urban literature that landlords offer discounts to their current tenants when contracts are renegotiated.     

On the use of policy to reduce housing market segmentation

This paper discusses two questions: (i) in Britain, can the movements of households away from cities be reversed by suitable government policies? (ii) Can integrated rather than segregated communities be developed? We consider the use of three types of policy instrument—land use planning, area regeneration initiatives and fiscal incentives targeted at individual households. We employ two types of model to investigate these policies—firstly, illustrative cellular automata, designed to illustrate the stability of segregation and, secondly, a fully estimated model of location choice. Our results suggest that there is potential for wider use of fiscal policy to influence population distributions.     

The UK housing market and the monetary policy transmission mechanism: An SVAR approach

I estimate an eight variable structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model of the UK economy based upon that of Kim and Roubini [Kim, S., Roubini, N., 2000. Exchange rate anomalies in the industrial countries: a solution with a structural VAR approach. J. Monet. Econ. 45(3), 561–586] for the purpose of investigating the role of the housing market in the transmission of monetary policy. Retail sales fall by just under 0.4% following a temporary positive 100 basis points shock to short-term domestic interest rates; inflation is also lowered. House prices fall by 0.75%. House price shocks increase consumption, the price level and interest rates. Combining the central estimates for interest rate and house price shocks suggests that house price movements can explain about one-seventh of the fall in consumption following an interest rate shock. A counterfactual simulation comes to a similar figure.     

1 Comparative housing policy: a study from a political science perspective

Book reviewed in this article: Review symposium: the politics of housing in Britain and France: Duclaud-Williams, R. H. 1978: The politics of housing in Britain and France.     

土地年租制:住宅用地制度改革的方向

在厘清土地年租制、租赁制、出让制三者之间关系的基础上,阐述了土地年租制的本质是以长期契约为核心的租赁制,分析了城市住房土地年租制及其特征,剖析了我国现有城市住房土地使用制度存在的弊端,指出土地年租制是对我国城市住房土地使用制度的创新,提出了实施城市住房土地年租制应注意的问题及解决思路.     

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。     

The Tip of the Spear: How Longshore Workers in the San Francisco Bay Area Survived the Containerization Revolution

Introducing new technologies often crush unions; indeed, sometimes that is the purpose. However, the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU), on the US Pacific Coast, demonstrates that need not occur. In 1960, the ILWU and Pacific Maritime Association signed the Mechanization & Modernization agreement (M&M). M&M represented among the first efforts by a union to shape this process—to “get a share of the machine.” Although workers understood that new technologies cannot simply be resisted, tremendous controversy still existed, culminating in the US shipping industry’s longest strike ever. In 1971, members of the San Francisco Bay area’s Local 10 led this strike, having experienced containerization most extensively. Although their numbers plummeted, those remaining maintained power at a strategic point of the global economy. Looking at how these workers managed to survive and partially shape the introduction of a valuable new technology suggests that it, and globalization, need not always destroy unions.     

A dynamic,policy oriented model of the regulated housing market: The Swedish prototype

The design and preliminary implementation of a dynamic, policy oriented model of the regulated housing market is presented. The model is developed in the context of the Swedish housing market institutions which combine nearly all features encountered in other nations. Free buying and selling by homeowners, black markets, swapping of dwellings and rationing of price controlled dwellings both by landlords and a public authority are included as explicit transaction options (with distinct costs) available to existing and newly formed households in the market. The model simulates a sequence of temporary annual equilibria which are obtained by balancing effective demands with effective supplies. Household mobility choices, landlords' selling decisions and the rationing of dwellings at fixed prices are derived from stochastic maximization resulting in multinomial or nested logit models of choice behavior. An aggregated preliminary 16-equation version is calibrated with partly real, partly guesstimated data for the Greater Stockholm region in the mid-seventies. Qualitative comparative statatics and income compensated policy simulations with this version illustrate some unintended effects of Swedish housing policy resulting from the manipulation of the income tax, an income tax dependent property tax and housing allowances. The model provides a tool whereby deregulating institutional changes which are potentially Pareto improving can be identified. If, however, current institutions such as the rationing of dwellings result in sufficiently lower transactions costs for households relative to the free market, then deregulation is not Pareto preferred.     

城市老旧房屋的安全问题及破解方略——以上海市为例

对上海市老旧房屋的安全状况进行了实证调查,分析了老旧房屋面临的风险因素和脆弱性特性,研究了城市老旧房屋的安全问题。认为要解决这些问题,需要进一步完善房屋安全管理的法规标准、建立老旧房屋安全综合管理体系、建立财政补助机制、引入老旧房屋保险、建立民众参与和社会管理的长效机制。