A potential hazard of housing allowances for public housing

Benefit estimates indicate a large number of small households would emigrate from public housing if faced with an either-or choice between public housing and a housing allowance. Moreover, waiting lists are not sufficiently long to replace the emigres, so vacancy rates for small apartments might run as high as 55% under such a scheme. Raising public housing rents and making public housing tenants eligible for housing allowances seems a viable way to reduce emigration, although the scheme tried here, which sets rents equal to operating costs, does not eliminate emigration or vacancies entirely.     

Public accountability: reforms and resistance in social housing

The paper illustrates and discusses the changing nature of public accountability relations in public services that are transferred to a mutual organization. The paper contributes to the literature that studies resistance to the neo-liberal restructuring process, highlighting civil society campaigns as important actors. A social housing case study in Britain is developed, combining a critical realist and dialogical influenced analysis. The case study identifies the role of private finance, illustrating tensions between democratic-styled and NGO-styled public accountability relations. A conclusion that housing mutuals are in danger of being apologia for private capitalism is established.     

Reasserting the ‘social’ in social rented housing: politics,housing policy and housing reforms in New Zealand

After a decade of wide‐ranging social welfare reforms in New Zealand, that have resulted in a considerable restructuring of the role of the state in housing provision, the introduction of new housing legislation in 2000 marked a significant attempt to reassert the notion of social provision. This article examines the manner in which housing policy has recast the role of social rented housing in New Zealand and sets out the political context and implications of the new legislation in which housing policy is being pursued. It is argued that while the notion of social provision has been revived, social rented housing is still constructed in terms of a residual model of provision in the political discourses of reform. En Nouvelle‐Zélande, après une décennie de réformes sociales de toutes sortes, lesquelles ont largement restructuré le rô le de l'É tat dans la fourniture de logements, la récente présentation d'une législation sur l'habitat en 2000 s'est distinguée par une nette tendance à réaffirmer la notion de service social. En examinant comment la politique du logement néo‐zélandaise a remanié le rô le de l'habitat social en location, l'article expose le contexte et les implications politiques des nouvelles lois dans lesquelles s'inscrit la politique publique du logement. Si la notion de service social a été ravivée, le logement social en location reste un pis‐aller parmi les schémas d'aide évoqués dans les discours politiques réformistes.     

住房保障政策:英国经验及启示

住房问题是当今中国面临的重大难题之一.要解决好低收入家庭的住房问题,在借鉴英国经验的基础上,需要加强住房保障制度的立法工作,研究、制定和实施分享式产权购房计划,资助低收入家庭购买经济适用住房以及普通商品住宅,帮助低收入家庭获得居住权,并为其提供一个财富积累的机会.     

居家养老:住房与社区照顾的联结

借鉴国外实现居家养老的住宅建设经验,分析中国老年人居住环境存在的问题,从老人与环境适应的理论视角,认为改善住房条件与实施社区照顾的统合考虑是解决老年人养老问题的较好思路,并提出若干建议.     

Securing customer satisfaction through component service specifications: Purchasing maintenance services for social rented housing

Many companies nowadays buy services that they pass on to their customers. A specific example is a housing association that buys maintenance services to be delivered to their tenants. These services are referred to as component services and have a large impact on end customers, and this should be taken into account when developing the specifications for the service.The main objectives of this article are to (1) find out what end customers perceive as important for their customer satisfaction for component services; and (2) investigate whether the buying company gives sufficient attention to these characteristics in their service specifications. We investigate these issues in the context of maintenance services bought by Dutch housing associations and conduct a survey among tenants to determine the relative importance of different characteristics of the maintenance they receive on their dwellings. Subsequently, we investigate service specification documents to verify whether they sufficiently reflect the characteristics that are important for tenants.The survey results show that determinants of maintenance service quality that add to perceived tenant control are more important in case of reactive maintenance than in case of planned maintenance. Based on our analyses, we conclude that the selected housing associations only to a limited degree take these aspects into account in the specifications of maintenance services. Although replication in other settings is required, the results of this study suggest that buying companies are not always aware of the specific characteristics of component services, and how this affects the purchasing process.     

Comprehensiveness versus Pragmatism: Consensus at the Japanese–Dutch Interface

abstract    By comparing the views of managers working at the interface of two consensus-oriented societies, Japan and the Netherlands, we show important differences between the consensus decision-making processes as seen by Japanese and Dutch managers. These differences relate to how complete the agreement of opinion should be in order to speak of consensus, with the Japanese managers demanding a more complete consensus than the Dutch. The processes and conditions that Japanese and Dutch managers see as leading to consensus also differ. Japanese consensus is based on a more ordered, sequential process than Dutch consensus. Our respondents differed deeply regarding the role of the hierarchy in their own and the others' consensus processes, with both Japanese and Dutch managers seeing their own consensus process as less hierarchical. Our findings show that the concept of consensus is interpreted quite differently by Japanese and Dutch managers. This is an important warning for companies operating at the interface of these two societies. More in general our research illustrates the usefulness for international management research of detailed comparative studies focusing not on stark contrasts but on more subtle differences between management practices.     

Fifty years of measurement and scaling in the Dutch social sciences

It is evident from recent issues of journals like Psychometrika and Applied Psychological Measurement that the Dutch contribution to the development of the area of measurement and scaling is considerable. In the first part of this paper, we try to answer the question how this could happen. In the early development De Groot in Amsterdam and Van de Geer in Leiden created an academic climate that made it possible for many researchers to develop their skills. Some other possible reasons are sketched for the flourishing of this area in the Netherlands, but it is difficult to assess which reasons were most important. In the second part of the paper, we analyze the international impact of the Dutch contribution by a citation analysis in four fields of measurement and scaling: factor analysis, test theory including item response theory, latent class analysis, and optimal scaling and multidimensional scaling. It appears that Dutch researchers not only publish a lot, but also that the impact of their publications is at the same level as publications produced world-wide.     

住宅小区的阶层化:机遇与挑战

随着社会转型的快速推进 ,社区将发生什么样的变迁 ,这种变迁将给城市带来什么影响 ,一直是社会和学术界关注的一个重大方面。在此之前 ,笔者曾对我国城市社区阶层化的必然性、阶层化的条件与机制进行了理论论证和实证证明 ,认为我国城市社区必然走向阶层化。这一变迁趋势也必然给中国城市发展带来一定的机遇与挑战。　　一、住宅小区的阶层化　　在前期理论论证中 ,笔者将所研究的社区界定为大城市社区内部具体的各个不同的住宅社区 ,类似于西方城市区位理论中的各种城市区位 ,也即国内学者所谓的分区制居住结构中的居住区域 ,并根据社区内…     

Earthquake risk and housing prices in Japan: Evidence before and after massive earthquakes

The hedonic pricing approach is used to examine whether homeowners and/or renters alter their subjective assessments of earthquake risks after massive earthquakes. Using nation-wide household panel data coupled with earthquake hazard information and records of observed earthquakes, we find that there are some modifications of individuals' assessments of earthquake risk in both cases. We have carefully taken into consideration the bias stemming from the use of objective risk variables as a proxy for individual risk assessments. Our results suggest that the price discount from locating within a quake-prone area is significantly larger soon after earthquake events than beforehand. We argue that the most likely interpretation for this result is that households tend to underestimate earthquake risk if there has not been a recent occurrence.     

The baby boom and the housing market: Another look at the evidence

Based on tests for cointegration, the growth of housing demand resulting from the Baby Boom appears to be the major factor behind increased real residential investment, but not the major factor behind increased real housing prices in the postwar U.S. The housing market also passes a simple test for efficiency.     

浅析个人住房公积金贷款现状及其风险管理

随着房地产市场的升温,房地产商品需求的逐渐增大,房贷规模随之增大,个人住房公积金贷款作为国家政策性住房金融的主体倍受青昧。受市场环境影响,公积金贷款的风险也在增强,文章从公积金贷款的现状出发,分析公积金贷款的风险．并提出有效的控制措施。