Are housing benefit an effective way to redistribute income? Evidence from a natural experiment in France

In this paper, I show that in-kind benefit such as a housing benefit program may have a significant impact on the price of the subsidized good. I use a French housing benefit reform to evaluate the impact of the subsidy on the level of rents. The results indicate that one additional euro of housing benefit leads to an increase of 78 cents in the rent paid by new benefit claimants, leaving only 22 cents available to reduce their net rent and increase their consumption. This large impact of housing benefit on rents appears to be the result of a very low housing supply elasticity. I show that the housing benefit reform induced additional demand, not only from low income households but also from students who used the benefit to become independent. Unfortunately, this increase in demand was unmatched by increasing housing supply in the short and middle term. The only possible effect of the reform is a small increase in housing quality. These results raise questions about the use of such in-kind transfers when the supply of the subsidized good is almost inelastic. It is therefore very important to estimate the incidence of the subsidy when assessing the efficiency of such welfare programs.     

旁租波动与政府干预

房租的逐渐上涨及其变动原因成为近期关注的焦点之一。本文分析了城市房租波动的四个典型化特征,并讨论了影响城市房租波动的若干因素,其中包括房价变动及以收入和利率表征的基本面因素,也包括投机需求和政府限购政策及房产税等。最后,我们分析了政府干预房租的可能性和形式。     

Are There Tax Arbitrage Opportunities in Private Rental Housing Markets?

Tax arbitrage opportunities in rental housing markets arise when high bracket taxpayers exploit the tax shelter and conversion features of the tax treatment of rental housing and as a consequence offer low bracket taxpayers rental housing at a cost lower than if they purchased the same quantity of housing for owner occupation. A microdata set has been employed to estimate the size of these tax arbitrage opportunities with respect to 1907 properties owned by Australian landlords. The measure of tax arbitrage opportunities is the breakeven tax rate at which the maximum rental rate a potential occupant is prepared to pay before turning to purchased housing is equal to the landlord's reservation rental rate. Potential occupants with marginal tax rates below the breakeven tax rate find that renting has a relative cost advantage over home purchase. When agency costs (the costs incurred in managing landlord-tenant relationships) are included in the tax arbitrage model, our estimates of the breakeven tax rate indicate that home purchase has a relative cost advantage over renting for most potential occupants. Renting is only financially attractive to low tax bracket individuals. This finding is consistent with Australian tenure patterns. However, there are more puzzling results. A majority of landlords belong to tax brackets below the top bracket, landlords in the lowest tax brackets typically make below normal profits, and reservation rental rates at the bottom of the rental housing market are relatively high. Down payment requirements, lock-in effects, and rent clientele groups are put forward as possible explanations for these findings.     

Landlords, tenants and the public sector in a spatial equilibrium model of rent control

A spatial model is used to explore the effects of urban rent control. When landlords and tenants can alter economic and location decisions, policy effects in controlled and uncontrolled zones may differ from standard predictions. Tenants in both zones may benefit from the control, even after unfavorable landlord adjustments, but these gains are likely to come at the expense of landlords and the public sector. Efforts to restore profits and fiscal balance, without negating utility gains to renters, may fail unless control distortions can be adequately shifted to absentee landowners through lower site rents. Lump-sum renter subsidies may offer equivalent utility gains with less severe impacts on landlords and the public sector, but the supply elasticity of land again matters.     

房租波动与政府干预

房租的逐渐上涨及其变动原因成为近期关注的焦点之一。本文分析了城市房租波动的四个典型化特征,并讨论了影响城市房租波动的若干因素,其中包括房价变动及以收入和利率表征的基本面因素,也包括投机需求和政府限购政策及房产税等。最后,我们分析了政府干预房租的可能性和形式。     

Efficiency rents: A new theory of the natural vacancy rate for rental housing

This paper adapts the theory of efficiency wages to explain the natural vacancy rate in rental housing markets. A positive vacancy rate provides landlords an incentive to invest in maintenance because if they fail to do so, some tenants will leave and the unit will sit vacant for a finite period of time. The resulting foregone rent will penalize landlords’ failure to maintain. Habitability laws, which have been enacted by states since the 1960s, provide a non-market penalty which lessens the need for market enforcement. Variation in these laws by state offers an opportunity to test the theory.     

The Effect of Public Social Housing on Households' Consumption in France

The French public social housing sector offers rents which are more than 60% below market levels. The “loss” of the public sector landlords, estimated from the rent they could get for their apartments at market prices, amounts to 37 billion Francs per year for the 3 million public social apartments in France. This allows the social sector tenants to consume 10% more housing services and 11% more of other goods. The corresponding surplus gain is around 34 billion Francs. The surplus loss for the collectivity due to these transfers is thus 3 billion Francs, 8% of the transferred sums. As compared to personal housing subsidies, which represent half this amount for the same tenants, the surplus gains are much less concentrated on the poorest part of the population.     

Efficiency of markets for heterogeneous,indivisible housing

A rental housing market with a finite number of traders is presented. Tenants trade money to landlords for the use of an indivisible, heterogeneous house. Equilibrium is defined as the outcome of a competitive bidding arrangement among agents, the bid rent approach. Using this bidding arrangement, the two fundamental welfare theorems are shown to apply to this market. The second welfare theorem is verified via an algorithm which constructs equilibrium prices for Pareto-efficient allocations.     

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.     

The demand for rental housing: Evidence from the Housing Allowance Demand Experiment

This paper provides new evidence on the price and income elasticities of demand for rental housing by low income households. Housing expenditures of households participating in the Housing Allowance Demand Experiment and receiving housing allowances in the form of a proportional rent rebate are analyzed. These rent rebates experimentally vary the effective relative price of housing and thus enable estimation of the price elasticities. Natural income variation enables estimation of income elasticities. Analysis is carried out using two functional forms and a variety of models of housing dynamics. The estimated income and price elasticities of demand are 0.36 and −0.22, respectively. When the sample is restricted to include only households headed by couples, the elasticity estimates are 0.47 for income and −0.36 for price. These estimates are lower (in absolute value) than have been previously estimated and it is suggested that this may be due to the low-income nature of the sample.     

现行政策下商业地产的发展趋势

一、现行宏观政策对商业地产的影响 从2004年起，鉴于政策导向，商业地产开发变得炙热起来。由于商业地产的利润比住宅开发要平均高出5％N10％，吸引了越来越多的投资者转向商业地产的开发。2005年1月1日开始，跨国零售商已开始在中国的全方位扩张。外资的到来推动国内商业市场发展，为商业地产带来巨大商机。2006年至2008...     

公共租赁住房租金定价方法比较研究及其借鉴

从英国开始推行公共租赁住房以来,公共租赁住房已经有几百年的历史。公共租赁住房的租金定价关系到政府的财政负担、社会投资者的收益和保障对象的可支付性,因此成为学术探讨和实践中的热点问题。本文总结了国内外公共租赁住房定价的影响因素,总结了定价方法,分为市场法、成本法和收入法,分析了各自的优劣势。并且结合北京公租房项目实践设想了一种综合上述三种方法的定价方法,具体为：在提供政策性土地和金融支持以及税费减免基础上,先测算住房建设规划期内区域单个项目的成本租金,然后根据市场租金设定每个项目的参照成本租金,并且进行多项目参照成本租金平衡。公租房租金和租房补贴分离,租房补贴与保障对象的收入匹配,使保障对象实际支付可负担租金,从而提高定价的效率和公平。     

‘House poor’ or simply ‘poor’?

This paper defines a set of indicators for distinguishing housing affordability problems resulting from high rents from those chiefly arising from low income. In place of the common ratio of rent to income, it uses a residual income indicator with indicators of over-consumption and over-paying for housing services. The indicators are computed for a sample of renter households in Switzerland, one of the countries with the greatest rental share. They help define more precisely who needs general income assistance and who needs specific housing aid (only one fourth of the former).     

住房保障的收入效应与分配效应：方法和实证

运用城镇居民收入分组数据、住房和城乡建设部住房保障统计报表数据,以及相关统计方法和分解方法,实证测算了2008-2011年住房保障的收入效应和分配效应。结果发现：住房保障的收入分配效应大于收入增长效应,廉租住房政策在改善居民收入不平等方面的作用十分明显,这意味着住房保障的社会福利功能已经显现。为此,从保障基本居住需要和改善收入分配的角度看,建议今后应当进一步拓展和完善面向最低收入人口的廉租住房政策。     

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.     

Tenure choice and the riskiness of non-housing consumption

This paper analyzes a household's choice of housing tenure within a dynamic utility maximization model that yields simple analytical results under uncertainty of income, housing prices, and rents. Given a housing consumption plan, we show that a decrease in the covariance between a household's earnings and housing rents increases the likelihood of ownership. A household who plans to remain in its home over a long period is more likely to own; a household who plans to remain in its home over a short period is more likely to rent. The higher the covariance between the user cost of a home and that of other properties a household is likely to consider in the future, the more likely the household is to own this home. These predictions of our model find support in recent empirical studies.     

城市青年白领住房需求偏好实证分析——以南京市为例

本文通过问卷调查了解南京市青年白领的住房需求情况。通过数据统计分析得出，婚姻状况、现住房性质、年龄、年收入是影响城市青年白领住房需求的主要因素。城市青年白领的刚性需求与改善型需求受婚姻状况影响显著，住房需求以刚性需求为主，改善需求强烈；年收入的不同导致了房屋单价的承受能力不同，大多城市青年白领可承受的房屋单价与当时南京平均房价仍有较大距离，存在住房困难问题。建议加强住房公积金的住房保障作用，提供一定的租金补贴和首次购房贷款优惠，实行差异化住房供应体系，满足不同住房需求。     

The Japanese Tenant Protection Law and Asymmetric Information on Tenure Length

The Japanese Tenant Protection Law (JTPL) protects tenure security to such an extent that landlords cannot terminate a contract at the end of a tenancy period without just cause. Hence, information on intended tenure length is important for landlords in managing rental housing. A model is developed in which landlords cannot foresee the intended tenure length of prospective tenants. If landlords are sufficiently risk-averse under asymmetric information on tenure length, the JTPL reduces the equilibrium quantity of rental housing, resulting in inefficiency of the Japanese rental-housing market.     

Accounting for owner-occupied dwelling services: Aggregates and distributions

Research linking macro and micro statistics of dwelling services is in its infancy in the U.S. including work by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Census Bureau. Comparisons of aggregated estimates generated from micro-level data to estimates at the macro-level can inform both levels on the accuracy and precision of methods and data sources. In this study, the treatments of housing in the macro statistics of the National Accounts and in the micro statistics of household expenditure and income surveys are examined. Three approaches to value dwelling services using household survey data are compared: capitalization rate, hedonic, and rental equivalence. Estimates are produced using data from the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey and American Housing Survey. Estimated aggregates of implicit net rental income from owner-occupied housing are compared to the aggregate value in the National Accounts. Possible sources of differences in the macro- and micro-based aggregates are discussed. The effects of adding net implicit rental income on income distributions are examined, particularly on inferences about the relative well-being by the age of householder. Overall, only marginal reductions in income equality result when net rental incomes are added to before tax money income; this only occurs when reported rental equivalence and return to home equity are used as methods of rent estimation.     

城市新就业职工住房保障问题实证研究——基于合肥市新就业职工的调查

调查表明,50%多的新就业职工住房困难。由于收入较低,新就业职工住房支付能力严重不足,30%多的新就业职工家庭缺乏租房支付能力;超过70%的新就业职工家庭缺乏购房支付能力。所以,要尽快将新就业职工纳入住房保障范围。首先,提高新就业职工收入水平,遏制住房价格过快上涨;其次,多渠道筹集住房保障资金;第三,积极创新相关配套政策,完善公共租赁住房准入和退出机制;第四,适时推出限价商品住房,利用优惠信贷政策,提高新就业职工住房支付能力。