ENDOGENOUS SOURCES OF VOLATILITY IN HOUSING MARKETS: THE JOINT BUYER–SELLER PROBLEM

This article presents new empirical evidence that internal movement—selling one home and buying another—by existing homeowners within a metropolitan housing market is especially volatile and a substantial driver of fluctuations in transaction volume over the housing market cycle. We develop a search model that shows that the strong procyclicality of internal movement is driven by the cost of simultaneously holding two homes, which varies endogenously over the cycle. The estimated model shows that frictions related to this joint buyer–seller problem substantially amplify cyclical price volatility in housing markets.     

OPPORTUNISTIC MATCHING IN THE HOUSING MARKET*

We construct a model of the housing market in which agents differ in their flow values while searching. Agents enter the market relaxed (with high flow values) but move to a desperate state (low flow values) at a Poisson rate if they have not already transacted. We characterize the equilibrium steady‐state matching pattern and the joint distribution of price and time to sale (for sellers). The expected price conditional on time to sale falls with time spent on the market, whereas the conditional variance of price first rises and then falls with time on the market.     

IS MONEY THE MEASURE OF WELFARE IN RUSSIA?

The transformation of a non-market to a market economy ought to change fundamentally the significance of money incomes for welfare. Whereas in a stressful non-market economy such as the former Soviet Union, non-monetized resources could substitute for money income and promote welfare, in a modern market economy money income should be a good proxy for household welfare. This article tests the extent to which Russians are now in a modern market economy by analyzing data from nationwide Russian surveys in January, 1992, and April, 1994. Modern influences are increasingly important as a determinant of the distribution of money incomes, but not as an influence upon household welfare. The "randomness" of temporary disruptions of welfare is in accord with Rawlsian principles of equity.     

THE IMMIGRATION PROBLEM IN AUSTRALIA

"The time has already come when each country needs a considered national policy about what size of population, whether larger or smaller than at present, or the same, is most expedient. And having settled this policy, we must take steps to carry it into operation."— J. M. Keynes.     

CAPITAL REQUIREMENTS FOR HOUSING IN THE 1980s

Massive federal budget deficits and declining personal saving flows portend an acute private-sector capital shortage over the balance of the 1980s decade. Housing is the sector of the economy most likely to bear the brunt of this shortage. Quantifying that shortage and suggesting preventive policy changes are the primary purposes of his paper. The recent, conservative estimates of household formations and housing production requirements of the MIT-Harvard Joint Center for Urban Studies form the basis for estimates of the net capital requirements for homing during 1984 through 1989. These estimates are compared with estimates of net capital supply for housing to reveal a capital shortage that will preclude the achievement of the housing production requirements without further change in economic policy. The paper concludes with specific recommendations for policy change, including proposals for deficit reduction and a broad-based tax incentive for saving     

THE STOCK PROBLEM IN HUNGARY

In The Present Paper The Author Reviews The Results Of An Investigation Aimed At Estimating The relative level of stocks in Hungary in terms of international comparisons. Though international comparison was limited by scarcity of data, it has still become evident that stocks as a whole, compared to production and sales, seem to be unnecessarily high. The investigation has been carried out in relation both to the level of stocks and their rate of increase. The global volume and building of stocks, however, did not give a satisfactory explanation, and the investigation had to be extended to the individual groups of stocks separately. In order to facilitate the comparison, stocks were classified into the following groups: agricultural stocks, goods in process, industrial finished goods and manufactures held by users, and retail stocks. The classification was based on the different function of the individual groups. This classification of stocks could be compared only with the data of the U.S A. The international comparison revealed that both the volume and the rate of increase of stocks in Hungary is unreasonably high. They are high even if we consider that the growth rate of the economy in Hungary was greater than in any of the countries examined. The author refers to the fact that the stock problem was one of the starting issues in the economic research process which led to the reform of the Hungarian economic management system introduced on 1st January 1968.     

MODES OF GOVERNANCE IN THE DUTCH SOCIAL HOUSING SECTOR

ABSTRACT ** :  We describe and analyze five consecutive modes of governance in the Dutch social housing sector. We compare these institutional forms with the five policy values that the sector was assumed to realize. For that purpose we propose and use a new, analytical framework based on a separation principle that is applied to the coercion domain (the governance of transactions) as well as to the interaction domain (the welfare values). The consecutive modes of governance were introduced to cope with the changing welfare policies, but with varying results. In this paper we show that the implemented modes of governance in the Dutch social housing sector did not always realize the values that the sector was supposed to deliver. The framework we propose also facilitates the discussion about the concept of a social enterprise and the embedding of a service of general interest in the European Union.     

IMPORTANCE OF DEMOGRAPHICS FOR HOUSING IN THE OECD ECONOMIES

The aim of this contribution is to study the role of demographics in the explanation of house prices in the last few decades. Special attention is paid to the role, which has been played by three groups of population that have different necessities in terms of the amount of housing services that they wish to consume: (a) population aged between 25 and 44 years old; (b) population aged between 45 and 64 years old; and (c) retirees. Following our discussion of recent trends in demographics and relevant stylized facts, the construction of a theoretical framework ensues; finally we provide empirical evidence in the case of 17 OECD economies over the period 1970–2013, discuss it in relation to our theoretical framework before we summarize and conclude.     

COMPARING POST-COLD WAR MILITARY CONVERSION IN THE UNITED STATES AND RUSSIA

According to the conventional wisdom, military conversion in Russia would be more difficult than in the United States because Russia does not have the developed market infrastructure and institutions that help western defense firms redeploy resources for civilian production. A closer look raises doubts about these arguments. Western defense firms have had difficulties with conversion because they cannot compete with the existing relatively efficient civilian firms. Meanwhile, the principal competitors of the Russian defense firms, the large Russian civilian enterprises, are closer in nature to defense enterprises than to efficient market firms. While this does not bode well for the Russian economy in general, the defense enterprises should not find themselves at a significant disadvantage in the civilian markets. Two effects can be distinguished. On the one hand, due to the more developed market infrastructure, the U.S. economy is presumably good at redeploying defense-related resources across firm boundaries. On the other hand, the large and efficient civilian sector in the United States makes the marginal "civilian" value of the redeployed resources low. It is the interaction of these factors, rather than the degree of development of market infrastructure alone, that determines the relative difficulty of military conversion. Additionally, empirical evidence based on regional data indicates that despite enormous defense expenditure cuts, the economic performance of Russia's regions is only relatively weakly correlated with the regions' dependency on defense industry.