Wages and prices: Are workers fully compensated for cost of living differences?

This paper investigates the equilibrium relationship between wages and prices across labor markets. Of central interest is the extent to which workers receive higher wages to compensate for differences in the cost of living. According to the spatial equilibrium hypothesis, the utility of homogenous workers should be equal across labor markets. This implies that controlling for amenity differences across areas, the elasticity between wages and the general price level across areas should equal one, at least under certain conditions. I test this hypothesis and find that the predicted relationship holds when housing prices are measured by rents and the general price level is instrumented to account for measurement error. When housing prices are measured by housing values, however, the wage-price elasticity is significantly less than one, even using instrumental variables. Rents reflect the price paid for housing per unit of time and are arguably the superior measure. Thus, findings in this essay provide support for the full compensation hypothesis. These findings also have important implications for researchers estimating the implicit prices of amenities or ranking the quality of life across areas.     

我国保障性住房分配风险防控研究——以江苏省淮安市为例

保障性住房居住成本低、买卖价差大,在保障性住房分配中容易出现腐败、分配不公等情况,因此保降性住房分配—直是住房保障工作的重点,如何防范在分配中的各种风险将会影响到住房保障工作的顺利实施。对现行保障性住房分配机制存在的风险以及产生的原因予以分析,并以江苏省保障住房工作成绩突出的淮安市为例,提出控制保障性住房分配风险的对策与建议。     

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.     

The social cost of through traffic: Contribution to the suburban-central city exploitation thesis

This paper deals with the conflict between local and through traffic when allocating land for transportation at the expense of residential consumption. The model developed in this paper gives the optimal allocation of land between both uses, via Pontryagin's Maximum Principle, and shows the impact of through traffic on the urban structure, on local transportation costs and on the cost of housing supply. The cost functionals are used to measure the total burden to the inner city and a connection is made to the ongoing discussion of the ‘exploitation’ thesis.     

Demography and the demand for housing A reinterpretation of the Mankiw-Weil demand variable

This paper argues that the Mankiw-Weil forecast of a 47% decline in house prices over the period to 2007 is based on a serious misinterpretation of their demand variable. In a time-series context this variable, which comes from a cross-section regression of house values against the age of occupants, is a measure of the adult population, not the demand for housing services or the stock of houses. Econometric work suggests that in addition to adult population, real income, relative prices and real interest rates are important factors determining the aggregate demand for housing. To be credible, forecasts of house prices need to integrate information on demand with information on cost factors and the supply of new houses.     

Is shared housing a way to reduce homelessness? The effect of household arrangements on formerly homeless people

Most single adults share housing with other adults, and living alone is considerably more expensive than living with someone else. Yet policies that discourage shared housing for formerly homeless people or people at risk of becoming homeless are common, and those that encourage it are rare. This would be understandable if such housing adversely affected its users in some way. We ask whether shared housing produces adverse effects. Our provisional answer is no. For the most part, whether a person lives alone or shares housing seems to make no difference to the outcomes we studied although shared housing is associated with reduced psychotic symptomology. We use data from ACCESS, a 5-year, 18-site demonstration project with over 6000 formerly homeless individuals as participants.     

HOUSING DEMAND IN A TRANSITIONAL MARKET: MOSCOW

Before Russia began its transition toward the market, its housing sector was perhaps the most controlled in the world. This paper employs data from a 1994 survey of Moscow households to estimate housing demand functions to evaluate whether behavior is consistent with market principles. Statistically significant, robust income elasticities are found for families who have engaged in recent market housing transfers. Insignificant results are found for those renting state-owned units. Families who have engaged in market housing transfers are smaller, younger and wealthier than other families in Moscow and end up living in less crowded conditions than state renters. The use of per capita living space as a proxy for market value, as has been done in previous studies of housing in Russia and the Soviet Union, is also evaluated.     

房屋工程造价的动态管理与控制

本文对于目前房屋工程造价的现状进行了研究,从施工方的角度提出了一些控制施工阶段房屋工程造价的具体措施,希望对我国目前混乱的房屋工程造价的动态管理与控制有所帮助。     

How do services of owner-occupied housing affect income inequality and redistribution?

This paper aims at analyzing the redistributive impact that the inclusion of the imputed rental market value of owner-occupied housing would have if used for quantifying the ability to pay rather than imputation based on cadastral values. We consider the Spanish personal income tax as reference, due to the differential treatment that it provides for imputed income from owner-occupied housing, together with the exceptionally high percentages of home ownership in Spain. By means of micro-simulation we explore the consequences of alternative possibilities for dealing with implicit income from owner-occupied housing.     

新加坡公共住房发展中典型新镇的建设与启示

无论是发达国家还是发展中国家,都面临着城市中低收入家庭住房困难如何解决的问题。新加坡作为一个资源匮乏的城I市国家,经过50年发展,已从最初单纯解决房荒问题逐渐演变为如何为公共住房社区居民的生活、工作和休闲创建良好的环境和配套设施并加强社区的活性和凝聚力建设,让公共住房最终提升为国家精神内涵载体的问题。以女皇镇、大巴窑、淡宾尼、榜鹅21新镇为例,分析了新加坡公共住房发展4个不同阶段典型新镇建设的特点,以期为我国当前大规模保障性住房的建设提供借鉴。     

Equivalence between welfare and entropy approaches to residential location

An optimization model for residential location in an urban area is presented. As the objective, a welfare measure is considered which is derived as aggregated expected utility based on utility-maximizing individual behaviour. The utilities include travel costs for work trips as well as a measure of the disutility with high-density living. The problem of finding a welfare maximizing housing allocation is shown to be equivalent to an entropy maximizing problem provided that a certain condition is met. By considering a dual formulation, a computationally more expedient problem is obtained. The model approach is illustrated by a few applications to the Stockholm region.     

Do inter-city differences in intra-city wage differentials have any interesting implications?

Recent research has related characteristics of cities to differences in the distribution of wages across workers with different skill levels. We demonstrate that these differences in wage differentials arise naturally as a compensating variation in Rosen’s theoretical model of inter-city wages. For example, if the income elasticity of demand for housing services is less than unity, cities with higher house prices will have smaller money wage differentials between low and high skill workers. This result has no implications for differences in either absolute or relative real productivity or welfare of unskilled workers. Similarly, changes in the amenity of an urban area may result in changes in relative wages of skilled and unskilled workers with no implications for real productivity or welfare differentials.Empirical tests in which housing cost differentials are added as a determinant of inter-city differences in an intra-urban wage differential model provide empirical confirmation of the theoretical expectations. It appears that intra-urban money wage differentials, differences in the quality of life, and variation in the cost of living in each city are jointly determined variables just as Rosen’s model of inter-city wage differentials predicts.     

Do inter-city differences in intra-city wage differentials have any interesting implications?

Recent research has related characteristics of cities to differences in the distribution of wages across workers with different skill levels. We demonstrate that these differences in wage differentials arise naturally as a compensating variation in Rosen’s theoretical model of inter-city wages. For example, if the income elasticity of demand for housing services is less than unity, cities with higher house prices will have smaller money wage differentials between low and high skill workers. This result has no implications for differences in either absolute or relative real productivity or welfare of unskilled workers. Similarly, changes in the amenity of an urban area may result in changes in relative wages of skilled and unskilled workers with no implications for real productivity or welfare differentials.Empirical tests in which housing cost differentials are added as a determinant of inter-city differences in an intra-urban wage differential model provide empirical confirmation of the theoretical expectations. It appears that intra-urban money wage differentials, differences in the quality of life, and variation in the cost of living in each city are jointly determined variables just as Rosen’s model of inter-city wage differentials predicts.     

Housing Preferences of Temporary Migrants in Urban China in the wake of Gradual Hukou Reform: A Case Study of Shenzhen

In the wake of the recent announcement by the State Council concerning the provision of public rental housing across China, and the gradual reform of China's household registration system (hukou), this article explores how potential adjustments in government housing policies (namely access to public rental housing) influence the housing preferences of temporary migrants who are currently residing inside the chengzhongcun (urban villages) of Shenzhen. The results indicate that dissatisfaction with rental cost and living conditions in these urban villages are the key reasons for migrants wishing to move into public rental housing if it is offered to them — and not the fact that they are treated differently within the hukou system. Public rental housing is welcomed in particular by newly arriving migrants who live outside the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (SEZ), and migrants who have decided to remain in Shenzhen for the foreseeable future. By contrast, dissatisfaction with urban villages is the sole contributor to housing preferences for those residing inside the SEZ.     

住房与交通综合可支付性指数的设计与应用——以北京为例

城市空间结构的理论及实证研究表明,城市土地利用与交通系统之间存在着密切的互动关系.在空间上,居民所负担的住房成本和交通成本通常呈现此消彼长的关系.因此,单纯考虑"住房成本占收入的比重"不能全面衡量居住区位选择所引致的成本.为了更全面和精细地评价居民对于住房成本和交通成本的综合支付能力及其空间分布特征,设计了住房与交通综...     

A Comparison of the Determinants of Structural Quality between Manufactured Housing and Conventional Tenure Choices: Evidence from the American Housing Survey

This study employs data from the 1985-1989 American Housing Surveys to compare the cost and perceived structural quality of owned manufactured housing with traditional rented and owner-occupied housing alternatives. In general, manufactured housing is found to compare to traditional alternatives because of its low cost and households′ perceptions that its structural quality is relatively high. An ordinal probit model is used to examine the way in which specific structural attributes affect households′ ordinal ranking of overall structural quality. This experimentation suggests that the same factors are important across all tenure types in influencing perceived structural quality. In addition, it is demonstrated that, under the right circumstances, manufactured housing could be a cost-effective way to improve the quality of housing for low-income families who currently rent. Finally, suggestions are made regarding policy options and future research on manufactured housing.     

Location incentives in the low-income housing tax credit: Are qualified census tracts necessary?

The low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) is the largest project-based housing subsidy in the United States. Within the program, private developers receive a subsidy in exchange for constructing apartment units that rent for a predetermined affordable rate. Because the subsidy requires apartment buildings to charge a lower rental rate, the opportunity cost of developing subsidized housing in a location is the market rent that a developer could have charged if he had not received the subsidy. This study characterizes how profit incentives motivate location decisions within the LIHTC program by showing that opportunity cost causes more LIHTC development in locations with low market rent. This result implies that additional financial incentives, like the qualified census tract, may not be necessary to promote construction of subsidized housing in low-rent areas.     

Cash in Your Face: The Cost of Racial and Ethnic Discrimination in Housing

According to recent evidence, racial and ethnic discrimination in housing continues to be widespread. This paper estimates the cost this discrimination imposes on black and Hispanic households. Building on the work of4, the paper develops a housing search model and measures the cost of discrimination by its impact on the gain a household can achieve through housing search. The cost of discrimination is then calculated for a representative sample of households. The punchline: Black and Hispanic households pay a discrimination “tax” of almost $4,000, on average, every time they search for a house to buy.     

From Occupying Plazas to Recuperating Housing: Insurgent Practices in Spain

Urban insurgencies have spread across the globe like wildfire in recent years. The indignado plaza occupations in Spain are often cited as beacons of popular and widespread dissent. This article argues that urban insurgencies with the highest emancipatory potential in Spain today are found in the practices of the housing rights movement—the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH, or Platform for Mortgage‐affected People)—that mainly entail blocking evictions and occupying empty bank‐owned housing. I elaborate on the notion of insurgent practice by examining how insurgency has been considered in relationship to citizenship, planning and public space. I propose insurgent practice as a way of articulating how people attempt to enact equality in everyday life and engage explicitly with socio‐spatial and political questions related to an emancipatory democratic politics. Based on a detailed analysis of two of the PAH's insurgent housing practices, I posit that recuperating empty bank‐owned housing with and for evicted families has the highest and most significant emancipatory potential, as it disrupts the core dynamics of urban capital accumulation and enacts equality for evicted households by directly contesting financial rent‐extraction mechanisms at multiple levels. In closing, I outline some conclusions that emerge from the Spanish housing case and from the concept of insurgent practice and urban politicizing practice in general.     

HOUSING CONDITIONS AND AFFORDABILITY IN HONG KONG

Housing in Hong Kong is of interest as an example of how improvements in living conditions have not kept pace with the territory's economic growth. This paper describes basic housing conditions in Hong Kong, and assesses them against the background of progress over time and within the context of housing conditions in other countries. Housing affordability is a growing problem, particularly for population groups that are marginal to the housing market. We discuss the emerging affordability crisis, especially for homeowners in the private sector, analyze the reasons behind it and review government policies to overcome the housing problems.