Rent Control in North America and Four European Countries
Rent Control in North America and Four European Countries

Author: William Smith

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-02-18

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 1000678911

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Rent control, the governmental regulation of the level of payment and tenure rights for rental housing, occupies a small but unique niche within the broad domain of public regulation of markets. The price of housing cannot be regulated by establishing a single price for a given level of quality, as other commodities such as electricity and sugar have been regulated at various times. Rent regulation requires that a price level be established for each individual housing unit, which in turn implies a level of complexity in structure and oversight that is unequaled.Housing provides a sense of security, defines our financial and emotional well-being, and influences our self-definition. Not surprisingly, attempts to regulate its price arouse intense controversy. Residential rent control is praised as a guarantor of affordable housing, excoriated as an indefensible distortion of the market, and both admired and feared as an attempt to transform the very meaning of housing access and ownership.This book provides a thorough assessment of the evolution of rent regulation in North American cities. Contributors sketch rent control's origins, legal status, economic impacts, political dynamics, and social meaning. Case studies of rent regulation in specific North American cities from New York and Washington, DC, to Berkeley and Toronto are also presented. This is an important primer for students, advocates, and practitioners of housing policy and provides essential insights on the intersection of government and markets.

The New Suburbanites
The New Suburbanites

Author: Robert W. Lake

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-28

Total Pages: 285

ISBN-13: 1351478419

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National data indicates a surge in African-American suburbanization during the 1970s. What are the barriers that have slowed this process for so long? Is black entry to the suburbs synonymous with integration? To what extent does it contribute to convergence in the residential distributions of whites and blacks? This careful and thorough study marshals evidence that black suburbanization offers less than full realization of the American Dream.Homeownership in the United States is a source of security, a sign of status, a means of equity accumulation, and a bond to the community. The basic premise underlying The New Suburbanitesis the preeminence of equal access. Survey data collected for this analysis pertains to successful homebuyers - whites and blacks who were able to negotiate safely the treacherous housing market conditions.Specifically, Robert W. Lake draws from a unique survey of black and white homebuyers to assess the institutional and housing market barriers to black suburban homeownership. How does racial discrimination add to the cost, time, and difficulty of housing search for black homebuyers? What is the effect of discrimination on housing prices, resale value, and equity accumulation? What is behind the complexity of white and black attitudes to suburban racial integration? What is the perspective of the real estate agent, the key market intermediary? The book addresses each of these questions and concludes with a critique of present federal fair housing legislation and an assessment of policy implications.

The Economics of Housing Vouchers
The Economics of Housing Vouchers

Author: Joseph H. Friedman

Publisher: Academic Press

Published: 2014-05-10

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 1483260437

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The Economics of Housing Vouchers is a seven-chapter text that examines the housing choices of low-income families in two metropolitan areas, namely, Phoenix and Pittsburgh. Some of these households are offered a novel kind of housing subsidy, including a housing allowance or housing voucher, in an experimental framework designed to test this approach to demand-side housing assistance. Chapter 1 presents an overview of U.S. housing programs and the dimensions of the U.S. housing problem. Chapter 2 provides a simple microeconomic model that conceptualizes household behavior, as well as a summary of some of the extant evidence on housing demand. This chapter also estimates the housing demand models for the low-income population in the Demand Experiment, using housing expenditures to measure housing. Chapter 3 applies a hedonic index of housing services that abstracts from particular characteristics of the household or landlord that may affect rent and attempts to measure housing in a more objective manner. Chapter 4 describes a model of household behavior that leads to the methodology for estimating experimental effects. Chapter 5 repeats the analysis for Minimum Rent households, while Chapter 6 examines the effect of both kinds of Housing Gap allowance payment on the consumption of housing services. Lastly, Chapter 7 focuses on the implications of the experimental findings for housing policy. This chapter compares a housing allowance strategy with two other approaches, namely, a pure income-transfer approach and a construction-oriented approach. This book is of value to workers in housing policy, including economists, regional and other social scientists in academia, housing analysts, the Congress, housing lobby groups, and state and local government housing officials.

Costs and Benefits of Rent Control
Costs and Benefits of Rent Control

Author: Stephen Malpezzi

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13:

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Over the past forty years, rent control has been a feature of housing in Ghana. This study focuses on the housing market in Kumasi, the second largest city in Ghana. The authors examine the characteristics of rent control in force there, and assess the costs and benefits of rent control, on landlords and tenants alike. These controls have been successful in ensuring that housing is very inexpensive for most households, in both absolute terms and in proportion of income devoted to rent. Because of these controls, landlords have been deprived of economic returns from their property. Therefore, they have tended to withdraw stock from renting to use for their own family members and to reduce maintenance. Rent control is not the only constraint on the housing market in Kumasi or in Ghana. This study also describes other supply side and regulatory constraints, including those affecting land, finance, and choice of building design and materials. A number of options for relaxation (decontrol) are studied with the aid of a simple present value model. Along with decontrol of new construction it is recommended that floating up and out of controls over a period of about 5 years, should be considered, along with policy changes to ensure ready supplies of land, finance, and building materials. Finally, building a political consensus behind decontrol is not independent of but is more important than the technical means chosen for decontrol or relaxation.

Social Protection vs. Economic Flexibility
Social Protection vs. Economic Flexibility

Author: Rebecca M. Blank

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2009-05-15

Total Pages: 387

ISBN-13: 0226056805

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As the Clinton administration considers major overhauls in health insurance, welfare, and labor market regulation, it is important for economists and policymakers to understand the impact of social and welfare programs on employment rates. This volume explores how programs such as social security, income transfers, and child care in Western Europe, the United States, and Japan have affected labor market flexibility—the ability of workers to adjust to fast-growing segments of the economy. Does tying health insurance to employment limit job mobility? Do housing policies inhibit workers from moving to new jobs in different areas? What are the effects of daycare and maternity leave policies on working mothers? The authors explore these and many other questions in an effort to understand why European unemployment rates are so high compared with the U.S. rate. Through an examination of diverse data sets across different countries, the authors find that social protection programs do not strongly affect labor market flexibility. A valuable comparison of labor markets and welfare programs, this book demonstrates how social protection policies have affected employment rates around the globe.

A Primer on U.S. Housing Markets and Housing Policy
A Primer on U.S. Housing Markets and Housing Policy

Author: Richard K. Green

Publisher: The Urban Insitute

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 9780877667025

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The first book that explains the economics of housing policy for a general audience. Planners, government officials, and public policy students will find that the economic perspective is a very powerful and useful way to examine these issues. The authors provide a broad review of the market for housing services in the U.S., including a conceptual framework, an overview of housing demand and supply, methods for measuring prices and quantities, and sources of basic data on markets. They cover housing programs and polices, and offer answers to policy questions that are of current interest. The book has been field-tested in graduate and undergraduate courses in urban and housing economics at the University of Wisconsin, the University of California--Berkeley, The University of Pennsylvania, and others. This book is also sure to be useful to policymakers, advocates, economists, and anyone interested in a clear picture of how housing markets function. Published in cooperation with the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association (AREUEA).

Estimating Economic Values for Nature
Estimating Economic Values for Nature

Author: Vincent Kerry Smith

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 1996-06

Total Pages: 644

ISBN-13: 9781782542100

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Estimating Economic Values for Nature presents, in one volume, a collection of V. Kerry Smith's papers prepared over 25 years dealing with the theory and practice of non-market valuation for environmental resources. Taken together, the papers explore the conceptual basis, the implementation process and empirical performance of all available methods of measuring economic values for the services of nature and how these values are constructed from people's choices. The issues discussed in this volume include travel cost recreation demand, averting behaviour, household production, hedonic property value, hedonic wage and contingent valuation methods. These essays describe what has been learned from past benefit analysis, using meta-analysis, as well as the issues at the frontier of current research in the area. This important volume will be welcomed by environmental and public economists, as well as practitioners of cost-benefit analysis, as an authoritative and comprehensive discussion of non-market valuation.