Housing mobility programs and economic self-sufficiency: Evidence from a randomized experiment

This paper examines the effects of a randomized housing-voucher program on individual economic outcomes. Public housing residents who are offered relocation counseling together with housing vouchers that can only be redeemed in low-poverty areas experience a reduction in welfare receipt of between 11% and 16% compared to controls. These effects are not accompanied by changes in earnings or employment rates as measured by unemployment insurance records. Offering families unrestricted housing vouchers without additional counseling appears to have little effect on economic outcomes.     

Search, migration, and urban land use: The case of transportation policies

We develop a search-matching model with rural-urban migration and an explicit land market. Wages, job creation, urban housing prices are endogenous and we characterize the steady-state equilibrium. We then consider three different policies: a transportation policy that improves the public transport system in the city, an entry-cost policy that encourages investment in the city and a restricting-migration policy that imposes some costs on migrants. We show that all these policies can increase urban employment but the transportation policy has much more drastic effects. This is because a decrease in commuting costs has both a direct positive effect on land rents, which discourages migrants to move to the city, and a direct negative effect on urban wages, which reduces job creation and thus migration. When these two effects are combined with search frictions, the interactions between the land and the labor markets have amplifying positive effects on urban employment. Thus, improving the transport infrastructure in cities can increase urban employment despite the induced migration from rural areas.     

The Effectiveness of Employment Vouchers: A Simple Approach

This paper explores the optimal design of subsidies for hiring unemployed workers ('employment vouchers' for short) in the context of a simple dynamic model of the labour market. Focusing on the short-term and long-term effects of the vouchers on employment and unemployment, the analysis shows how the optimal policy depends on the rates of hiring and firing, and on the problems of displacement and deadweight. It also examines the roles of the government budget constraint and of the level of unemployment benefits in optimal policy design. We calibrate the model and evaluate the effectiveness of employment vouchers in reducing unemployment for a wide range of feasible parameters.     

Vouchers and caseworkers in training programs for the unemployed

This paper studies the role of vouchers and caseworkers in training programs for the unemployed. We explore the unique features of the Hartz reform in Germany which simultaneously introduced training vouchers and imposed more selective criteria on participants. This allows us to go beyond the standard approach when we estimate the treatment effects for the most important type of training. Next to assessing the overall impact of the reform on the training’s effectiveness, we isolate the impact induced by changes in the composition of program participants (selection effect) from the impact based on the introduction of vouchers and related institutional changes (institutional effect). Our results show a small positive overall impact of the reform. The decomposition suggests that the selection effect is, if at all, slightly negative, and that the introduction of the voucher and related institutional changes increased both employment and earnings of participants. It furthermore appears that our findings are driven by skilled participants.     

Do low-income housing subsidies increase the occupied housing stock?

A necessary condition for justifying a policy such as subsidized low-income housing, either via tenant-based rental assistance or construction of public or private projects, is that it has a real effect on market outcomes. In this paper, we examine one aspect of the real effect of subsidized housing—does it increase the housing stock? If subsidized housing raises the quantity of occupied housing per capita, either more people are finding housing or they are being housed less densely. On the other hand, if subsidized housing merely crowds-out equivalent-quality low-income housing that otherwise would have been provided by the private sector, the housing policy may have little real effect on housing consumption. Using both Census place and MSA-level data from the decennial census and from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, we ask whether housing markets with more subsidized housing also have more total housing, after accounting for housing demand. We find that government-financed units raise the total number of units in a market, although on average one government-subsidized unit adds only one-third to one-half of a unit to the total housing stock. There is less crowd-out in more populous markets, and more crowd-out in places where there is less excess demand for subsidized housing, as measured by the number of government-financed units per eligible person. Tenant-based housing programs, such as Section 8 Certificates and Vouchers, seem to be more effective than project-based programs at targeting subsidized housing units to people who otherwise would not have their own.     

地方政府保障房供给的合作性努力与自私性努力：一项实证研究

地方政府具体落实保障房供给政策,其行为取向是保障房有效供给的决定性因素。构建改进的多任务委托代理模型,研究激励约束机制与地方政府付出的努力,以及与保障房供给行为取向之间的关系。研究结果表明：其一,地方政府的合作性努力水平与激励强度正相关。其二,约束机制缺失时,地方政府的自私性努力水平不随外部性强度的变化而变化;存在有效约束机制时,自私性努力水平与惩罚强度负相关。因而,增加保障房有效供给,既要激励地方政府的合作性努力,也要约束地方政府的自私性努力。     

Uncertainty,inequality and consumption preferences in urban China

In this paper we present an uncertainty–inequality–consumption model and empirically investigate the effect of uncertainty on the consumption behaviors of urban households with varying levels of socio-economic status in China. We observe that the condition of households that suffered from socio-economic inequality with respect to total consumption, educational expenditures, medical expenditures, and durable consumption worsened relative to other households when faced with income uncertainty. Income uncertainty did not affect the housing consumption of households that suffered from socio-economic inequality, but it substantially decreased their ability to consume other durables. As a result of the introduction of the modern enterprise system and the reform of the housing distribution system, households with a member employed in a management position suffer larger shocks of income uncertainty in total consumption, educational expenditures, medical expenditures, and housing consumption relative to household with all members employed in worker positions in 2002. Uncertainty with respect to medical and educational expenditures had more substantial effects on the non-durables consumption of low-income households than that of other households in 2002.     

School Finance Induced Migration and Stratification Patterns: The Impact of Private School Vouchers

This paper introduces a general equilibrium model of public school finance that includes: (i) multiple school districts that finance local public schools via property taxes set by majority vote; (ii) multiple neighborhoods within school districts where each neighborhood is characterized by a quality level of housing; (iii) local public schools that are obligated to admit all interested students who reside within the school district; (iv) private schools that function as clubs of parents who share the cost of the private school equally and who can choose to exclude others; (v) an educational production process that depends on both per pupil spending and average peer quality within the school; and (vi) individual peer quality levels that are correlated with the socioeconomic status of households. Since it allows for various degrees of imperfect stratification of residents across communities, the model is well suited for investigating empirically relevant migration forces induced by school finance reform proposals. The abstract model itself, however, is too complex to yield many analytic results. A computational counterpart to the model isnb therefore developed, calibrated to data, and utilized for policy experiments. In particular, the impact of vouchers in the context of different types of prevoucher educational finance systems is investigated, and it is found that migration patterns in general would cause vouchers to benefit public schools in poor communities while hurting public schools in wealthy communities.     

论房地产市场宏观调控的“财政拐点”

房地产市场是我国当前国民经济发展最为纠结的一个领域,公众、企业和政府三者之间长期未能找到一个合理的均衡点,由此导致整个运行机制的混乱无序。本文认为,这其中既有政府职能错位的原因,更有政府对低收入群体住房保障职能的"财政拐点"尚未到来的客观局限。因此,我国政府要真正履行对低收入群体的住房保障职能,首先要通过国民经济的进一步发展积聚更加强大的物质基础,从而争取这个财政拐点的早日到来。其次在目前的历史阶段上科学认识政府的住房保障职能,从而区分房地产市场的两种属性,进而建构房地产行业两种体系之间的良性互动关系,是政府完善住房保障职能和房地产行业可持续发展的关键举措。     

Assessing the evidence on neighborhood effects from Moving to Opportunity

The Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiment randomly assigned housing vouchers that could be used in low-poverty neighborhoods. Consistent with the literature, I find that receiving an MTO voucher had no effect on outcomes like earnings, employment, and test scores. However, after studying the assumptions identifying neighborhood effects with MTO data, this paper reaches a very different interpretation of these results than found in the literature. I first specify a model in which the absence of effects from the MTO program implies an absence of neighborhood effects. I present theory and evidence against two key assumptions of this model: that poverty is the only determinant of neighborhood quality and that outcomes only change across one threshold of neighborhood quality. I then show that in a more realistic model of neighborhood effects that relaxes these assumptions, the absence of effects from the MTO program is perfectly compatible with the presence of neighborhood effects. This analysis illustrates why the implicit identification strategies used in the literature on MTO can be misleading.     

房改给低收入家庭带来了多大好处?--关于沈阳市城镇低收入家庭住房状况的调查研究

1980年代以来，我国开始住房制度改革，使城镇居民住房状况总体上有了显著改善。然而，由于改革过程中政策措施的不配套，导致经济利益调整的非均衡，使得城镇低收入家庭的居住状况改善甚微，从而形成了目前贫富阶层住房两极分化的局面。本文通过对沈阳市低收入家庭实际住房状况的调查，分析了住房制度改革对低收入家庭的相对不利影响，指出通过政府在住房市场上提供社会保障住房，将有助于解决住房公平问题，进而实现市民普遍康居的小康社会目标。     

房价水平、交通成本与产业区位分布关系再考量

中心城市房价水平或地租水平的提高具有客观性。房价水平和交通成本变动对制造业区位分布影响较大,而对于生产性服务业的影响并不显著。占用土地面积较大的制造业向外转移不仅有可能抵消房价上涨的压力,而且为具有更高附加值的生产性服务业的发展创造条件。房价水平上涨和交通成本提高加快中心城市制造业的扩散以及生产性服务业的集聚,客观上促使城市间由专业化分工向功能分工结构转变,推动中心城市实现产业升级,有利于形成合理的区域分工格局。     

Using experimental economics to measure the effects of a natural educational experiment on altruism

Economic research examining how educational intervention programs affect primary and secondary schooling focuses largely on test scores although the interventions can affect many other outcomes. This paper examines how an educational intervention, a voucher program, affected students' altruism. The voucher program used a lottery to allocate scholarships among low-income applicant families with children in K-8th grade. By exploiting the lottery to identify the voucher effects, and using experimental economic methods, we measure the effects of the intervention on children's altruism. We also measure the voucher program's effects on parents' altruism and several academic outcomes including test scores. We find that the educational intervention positively affects students' altruism towards charitable organizations but not towards their peers. We fail to find statistically significant effects of the vouchers on parents' altruism or test scores.     

On measuring the effects of fiscal policy in global financial crisis: Evidences from an export-oriented island economy

Following the 2008 financial crisis, Taiwan implemented various fiscal policies so that they could offset the shocks from the financial crisis. In the present study, we investigate whether these two fiscal policies alleviated the shock generated by the 2008 financial crisis on Taiwan's economy and unemployment. The findings provide that the economic and employment effects generated by the public work investment project were the most substantial in the public sector. By contrast, the economic and employment effects generated by the consumption vouchers policy were the largest in the service sector. These outcomes are closely related to Taiwan's industry structure. The fiscal multiplier of the public investment project and consumer vouchers distribution was 1.94 and 1.47. The evidence in the present study also seems to suggest that the two fiscal policies examined could not induce an effective long-term transformation of Taiwan's economic system.     

经济适用房存在的问题及相应对策分析

住房一直是人们关注的热点,基于帮助低收入群体解决住房问题,国家推出了经济适用房政策.由于政策本身的不完善,经济适用房政策在取得成效的同时逐渐背离最初目的,忽略了低收入群体,易滋生寻租腐败.由政府制定低收入标准,设计兴建并最终分配经济适用房,可切实帮助低收入家庭解决住房问题,减少寻租腐败.     

Economic transition and private-sector labor: Evidence from urban China

This paper studies the transition of labor from the state sector to the infant private sector in urban China. We examine the impact of the first wave of housing reforms, which untied access to housing in urban areas from working for the state sector. We find that the reform significantly increased private housing ownership and private-sector employment, and reduced private-sector wages. The housing reform had no effect on unemployment or self-employment.     

不完全劳动市场、政府干预与失业率

本文针对我国不完全的劳动市场,建立了一个短视一搜寻模型,目的是要说明,第一,虽然政府直接干预下的就业率高于无政府干预的劳动市场的均衡就业率,但是后者的社会总福利水平高于前者,而且,无政府干预情形下失业者的福利水平不会低于政府干预时在低工资岗位上的就业者的福利水平.这说明政府直接干预劳动市场虽然有可能降低失业率,但可能导致整个社会福利损失,也不利于提高低收入人群的福利水平.第二,我国现行的社会保障制度、户籍制度以及地方保护政策妨碍城乡劳动力自由流动,造成城市居民一般占据了工资较高的岗位,农村居民一般只能找到工资较低的岗位.这种匹配过程达到的劳动市场均衡,虽然有可能最大限度降低城镇失业率,但不是使得全国总失业率最低的均衡.     

对低收入者住房问题的研究

2011年是极不寻常的一年。世界经济出现大变局,中国经济开始大调整后,中国经济面临大挑战。在地震频繁爆发,世界经济大幅度动荡的情形下,中国也在汶川.青海.云南之后,物价持续上涨,从而也在一定程度上影响着房地产事业。而占社会群体绝大多数的低收入者对此次的感受从某种意义上来说更为深刻。前两年房价上涨过快,脱离了绝大多数老百姓的承受能力,低收入者的住房问题成为全社会关注的焦点,也成为了国家在民生方面的工作重点。从全国范围来看,住房保障建设还远未达到要求。最主要是各级政府重视不够,虽然出台一系列政策措施,但是对保障政策的具体落实执行情况远不尽如人意,无论在投入机制、配套措施、部分城市政府介入还是保障性住房供应量等方面有诸多问题。     

The benefits and costs of public housing in New York City

Public housing has been the largest program of housing subsidies to low-income families in the United States for fifty years. This is a comprehensive study of its benefits and costs. It contains the first estimates of the extent to which the program provides its participants with greater effective incomes than the poorest ineligible families and the first detailed analysis of the distribution of benefits among all eligible households. It provides significantly better estimates of the effect of the program on consumption patterns of participants, the effect of replacing public housing with cash grants, and the efficiency with which housing services are produced. Finally, it adds to few reliable estimates of the distribution of benefits among participants.     

Housing investment in urban China

What explains the rapidly increasing housing investment demand in China? To address this question, we develop an analytical framework featuring how expected capital gains impact households' housing investment decisions when subject to financial constraints. Housing demand in China takes place not only through households' owning multiple houses, but also through their owning a larger primary living residence if they are constrained from buying multiple houses. We show that households are more likely to own multiple houses when expecting higher capital gains. As expected capital gain increases, the primary housing demand of those households who are constrained from owning multiple houses increases, while those owing multiple housing units invest in extra ones instead of improving primary housing. Our empirical findings, based on 2010 and 2011 household survey data, are consistent with our theoretical predictions. We also find that the marginal effect of expected capital gains is higher for wealthier households. This links the booming housing market to widening income inequality which is a typical growth pain in a developing country like China. As an extension, we apply the analysis to derive implications of the institutional features (such as purchasing restriction policy and the existence of subsidized housing) for China’s housing markets.