Negotiating the Politics of Exclusion: Georges Candilis,Housing and the Kuwaiti Welfare State

In the early stages of welfare planning, the Kuwaiti state restricted equal access to its housing programs in neighborhoods outside the city. The subsequent demographic shift, caused by a Kuwaiti exodus to the ‘suburbs' and non‐Kuwaiti urban labor migration, prompted calls for housing schemes to encourage city living for citizens. Georges Candilis's proposal for a residential neighborhood in Kuwait City emerged from this context. This article examining Candilis's unrealized project also offers a critical perspective on Kuwait's unbalanced housing policies. From this analysis, it draws observations on the role of architects and their limited impact on policies established by decision‐making networks within the welfare state. Seen from this perspective, the Candilis project bears witness to broader socio‐economic agendas that privileged some groups while marginalizing or excluding others.     

住房价格、社会保障支出和居民消费——基于面板门槛模型的实证分析

党的十九大报告提出了改善住房制度、加强社会保障和完善消费体制等一系列要求,这些热点问题之间不是孤立的,而是存在着内在的联系。为此,基于不确定性视角,将社会保障支出水平纳入分析框架研究发现,住房价格上涨通过社会保障支出对居民消费产生正向影响,与原有住房价格通过收入视角对居民消费产生的效应相叠加,使住房价格对居民消费产生的总效应呈现非线性关系。在此基础上,以地方政府社会保障支出水平作为门槛变量,建立关于房价和居民消费率关系的面板门槛模型,以我国2007—2015年省际面板数据为样本进行实证分析,结果表明：社会保障水平的变化使得住房价格对于居民消费率的影响存在显著的单门槛效应。当社会保障支出水平小于其门槛值时,住房价格上涨对居民消费率有较强的抑制效应,两者之间呈现显著的负相关关系;当社会保障水平超过门槛值后,住房价格上涨对居民消费率的抑制效应明显减弱。     

中国房地产投资与经济增长的计量分析

在20世纪90年代后期我国颁布了一系列的建设住房商品化以及建设住房规范的政策和措施,以深化我国的住房制度。从此,房地产业开始了良性的大发展,并逐渐成为了一些大中型城市的支柱产业和主要产业。本文运用时间序列计量经济模型从量化角度对二者的关系进行实证研究。     

Wealth effect and investor sentiment

This paper investigated the relationship between the U.S. stock and housing markets as well as their influence on the wealth effect of consumption and found that the stock market sentiment index can explain changes in the wealth effect. The empirical results indicate that these two markets exert a wealth effect on consumption. The estimation results of the Markov-switching model indicate two states: a state in which the stock market influences its coexistence with the housing market and a state in which the housing and stock markets are unrelated. Public optimism regarding stock market investments affects the probability of transitioning between these states.     

The "housing question" and the state-socialist answer: city, class and state remaking in 1950s Bucharest

Housing nationalization as a solution to urban inequalities has a long history in European social thought. This article describes housing nationalization in a state-socialist context. Using a political economy perspective and relying on recently released archival material about housing in 1950s Romania, I argue that nationalization may be regarded as a special type of urban process. Nationalization raised the occupancy rate and intensified the usage of existing housing, desegregated centrally located neighborhoods, turned some residential space into office space for state institutions, facilitated the degradation of the existing housing stock and gradually produced a socialist gentry. Aside from similarities with other state-socialist nationalizations from the same period, Romanian nationalization resembled the housing policies of other statist regimes. The data also suggest that, even in the context of revolutionary change, the state is a sum of multiple, often diverging projects, rather than a coherent actor.     

保障房“转换”式退出机制研究——腾退方式的有益补充

保障对象的经济条件改善后不再符合某类保障房标准,但仍无力购买或租赁商品房,也无其他住房可住时,腾退或停发补贴等退出方式存在较大的操作困难。研究认为,此种情形下,需要基于整体视角探讨保障房体系内部及保障房与商品房之间的退出衔接问题。通过住房管理政策的变化,更换住房标签,实现保障房体系内部或者保障与市场之间的转换,一定程度上可以化解保障房退出难题。     

The effect of economic policy uncertainty on China’s housing market

This study examines the relationship between economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and housing price at the macro-level in China as a developing country. The empirical evidence indicates that EPU has a leading effect on China’s housing market. In general, the housing market is prosperous when economic policy is stable and there is a positive relationship between housing price variation and EPU, which means housing market risk grows under unstable economic policies in this developing economy. Moreover, economic policy variation affects low-amplitude changes in housing prices. A variation of policy uncertainty enhances the risk premium of the housing market. By contrast, the level of EPU influences high-amplitude changes in housing prices, which reflects the trend of EPU dominating China's housing market.     

Energy footprint of the city: Effects of urban land use and transportation policies

Urban land use and transportation policies have dramatic effects on the density and spatial distribution of residences in large cities. Effects of these policies have been analyzed using numerical urban simulation models. At the same time, the US Energy Information Administration’s Residential Energy Consumption Survey has allowed researchers to investigate the relation between household energy consumption and characteristics of housing units.This paper links these two lines of inquiry by demonstrating how simulation results on the implications of land use and transportation policies for the spatial form of cities can be used to compute implications for energy consumption. The resulting Urban Energy Footprint Model, “UEFM,” allows one to trace the implications of a change in land use zoning or transportation policy through its effects on housing markets and residential location to the resulting changes in energy use for residential and commuting purposes – i.e. to understand the energy footprint of transportation, housing, and land use policies. Accordingly, the UEFM provides, perhaps for the first time, a link between urban and energy economics, and can allow measurement of rebound effects of energy policies in a more general equilibrium context.     

住房价格与消费支出关系研究——香港房地产财富效应实证检验

本文利用香港比较完整的房价、消费和薪金数据，运用误差纠正模型分析了房价与消费之间的关系。实证结果反映了香港地区（1982年—2006年）消费与房地产价格之间的长期均衡及短期动态关系，同时也为内地房地产的健康发展提供了一些启示。     

关于取消我国经济适用房政策的思考

经济适用房自上世纪90年代提出特别是1998年房改政策实施以来,得到了较大程度的发展,成为中低收入家庭的首选。但是从近些年的发展来看,经济适用房政策虽然解决了部分中低收入家庭的住房问题,但围绕经济适用房的出现的问题也屡见不鲜。因执行政策的偏差和固有的局限性没能完全发挥其社会保障功能,并孕育了潜在的风险、滋生了一些社会问题。文中认为在当前严厉打击房地产泡沫以及我国十二五规划严格控制房价的前提下,是时机取消经济适用房政策,这将更有利于社会的发展。     

利用税收政策调控房地产市场的对策思考

近年来，我国房地产业飞速发展，房价节节攀升，国家不断出台宏观政策来调控抑制房价，虽然取得一定成效，但仍然存在很多问题。加大税收杠杆的调节力度，通过税收政策的改革和创新来引导我国住房的理性消费势在必行。本文从税收角度分析了房价上涨的原因，对现行的税收政策提出了改革建议，以期稳定房价，促进房地产业的健康发展。     

Politique du logement et classes sociales

The quantitative and qualitative study of consumption reveals profound inequalities between social classes. What is the situation in those sectors of consumption where the state plays an important role? An analysis of the social structure of the population living in ‘moderate rent housing’ (Habitations à loyer modéré) in the urban area of Paris goes some way towards providing the answer. The probability of benefiting from this type of state aid is higher for qualified than for unqualified workers (especíally if the latter are immigrants). Much depends, however, on the political orientations of local authorities: the political dimension of social relations has therefore some bearing on the social outcome of state intervention. The different qualities of use value of HLM housing (comfort and location) are very unevenly distributed among social classes, and that distribution reflects the segregation that is apparent throughout the housing system in the Paris urban area. It state intervention produces an overall improvement in workers' living conditions, the way in which this improvement is achieved is still marked by deep social inequalities.     

利用税收政策调控房地产市场的对策思考

近年来,我国房地产业飞速发展,房价节节攀升,国家不断出台宏观政策来调控抑制房价,虽然取得一定成效,但仍然存在很多问题。加大税收杠杆的调节力度,通过税收政策的改革和创新来引导我国住房的理性消费势在必行。本文从税收角度分析了房价上涨的原因,对现行的税收政策提出了改革建议,以期稳定房价,促进房地产业的健康发展。     

福利国家英国的住房政策

本文分析了英国住房福利体系的构成与其居民的居住方式。通过对英国住房福利体系的分析和近年来住房制度的改革 ,指出英国住房政策对我国的启示     

地价与房价的因果关系——基于武汉市的实证研究

研究目的——探讨地价与房价的因果关系。研究方法——实证研究法和计量经济学方法。研究结果——在中短期,地价是一个相对独立的变动过程,不受房价的影响,而房价却受到地价的显著影响;从长期来看,房价对地价的影响开始增强,但总不及地价对房价的影响,地价一直占主导地位。研究结论——在调控房价时,应先稳定地价。房地产价格调控需要从四个方面着手：一是革除地方政府对土地财政的依赖;二是调整土地政策,增加土地供应量;三是加大保障性住房建设力度;四是打击房地产投机。     

Land-price dynamics and macroeconomic fluctuations with nonseparable preferences

In this paper, we introduce a complementary relationship between consumption and labor hours by revising the household’s period utility function in Liu et al. (2013). The revision concomitantly allows for a finite Frisch elasticity of labor supply and a stronger consumption smoothing motive. We find that, in general, the estimation of Liu et al. (2013) is quite robust. In addition, the propagation mechanism of the credit constraint triggered by a housing demand shock still persists. However, the amplification effect of the credit constraint triggered by the housing demand shock on key macroeconomic variables is greatly muted. We also find that, except for land price fluctuations, the housing demand shock cannot act as the primary force to drive the fluctuations in other macroeconomic variables.     

Cross-sectional estimation of a simultaneous model of tenure choice and housing services demand

In this paper we analyze the demand for housing services, integrating into a single analysis a systematic treatment of several important conceptual and empirical issues. Our three major objectives are to (1) evaluate the empirical importance of the simultaneity between the tenure choice and consumption level decisions; (2) analyze the relationship between household type and housing demand; and (3) present new estimates of the parameters of housing demand which are based on detailed microdata. In the process, we derive and estimate overall income and price demand elasticities which incorporate the impacts of income and price on both the tenure choice and consumption level decisions.     

Property taxation and the demand for housing: An econometric analysis

There is disagreement among economists regarding the effect of a local increase in property taxation on the housing market. In defining the price of housing services studies of the demand for housing have treated the property tax exclusively as an excise tax on housing consumption. Two recent theoretical developments suggest this is a misrepresentation of the tax. One theory holds that the excise effects of property taxation may be shifted backward to the factors employed in the production of housing. The other theory concludes that the property tax is not an excise, but rather serves as an efficient price for local public services. To investigate these hypotheses, data from the Annual Housing Survey were employed to estimate a housing demand model which included the net effective property tax rate among the set of independent variables. In addition to revealing the property tax-housing demand relationship, the model provides more reliable estimates of income and price elasticities by eliminating specification errors found in previous studies. Results indicate that the property tax reduces the housing consumption of central city homeowners, but does not distort the suburban housing market.     

HOUSING POLICY IN DEVELOPING ECONOMIES: Evaluating the Macroeconomic Impacts*

This paper presents a view of the role of the housing sector in developing countries which emphasizes the potentially high macroeconomic costs of inappropriate housing policies. Traditional public finance perspectives on the role of the housing sector in the economy focus on efficiency and equity implications of the rather modest levels of government spending in the sector. This paper points out that this traditional approach is misleading in that it is less government's spending in the sector than its role in defining regulatory frameworks, pricing policies, and policies affecting the financial sector that comprise the major instruments for influencing the performance of the housing sector and, in turn, the way its performance affects the macroeconomy. The paper also presents a simplified framework for analyzing how housing policies influence the housing sector and the macroeconomy. Simple applications of the framework suggest that the macroeconomic implications of housing policy choices can be of major importance. This is emphasized by two case studies, of policies in Argentina and Poland, where recent housing policies appear to have had major impacts on levels of investment, price and wage levels, and savings rates.     

A microeconometric analysis of housing and life satisfaction among the Vietnamese elderly

This study examines the relationship between housing and subjective well-being among the Vietnamese elderly, using data from the 2011 Vietnam Ageing Survey. Our regression analysis reveals that permanent housing and better amenities are major factors contributing to housing satisfaction and life satisfaction. Notably, we find that housing satisfaction has a strongly positive impact on life satisfaction and the impact is stronger after controlling for endogeneity problems. Thus, the finding confirms that housing is an important life domain and as a result, housing satisfaction is a strong predictor of life-satisfaction judgments. The findings might suggest that people made a rational choice when they invested a large amount of resources in their houses with notable well-being gains. Also, another implication here is that policies and programs to assist poor families in moving out of temporary accommodation or improving housing amenities are likely to be beneficial in improving well-being for the poor elderly.