The Economic Problems Of Housing

Frontmatter

The Political Economy Of Housing

Chapter 1. The Political Economy Of Housing

Abstract

In a paper to be discussed at a conference to which experts in many fields and from many countries will contribute, it may be helpful to survey the context — the social, economic, and political environment —within which a government’s housing policies develop, with the aim of identifying and relating to each other the principal features of this environment and the principal academic disciplines capable of throwing light upon it. My purpose is not primarily to advance economic theory—still less to advocate any specific housing policy — but to explore the extent and character of the impact which governments can make upon the housing conditoins of their countries, and the factors which determine the scope and limits of government activity in this field.

D. V. Donnison

Slums and Poverty

Chapter 2. Slums and Poverty

Abstract

Most discussions of the slum problem emphasize factors which increase the relative supply of poor-quality housing. In some, the increase in the supply of slums results from a decline in the demand for good-quality housing in the older, central parts of cities. Age and obsolesence, the fall in transport costs brought about by the automobile, and encroachment of hostile land uses are reasons often given for the decline in demand. In other discussions of slum formation, the increase in poor-quality housing supply is said to result from external diseconomies, market imperfections, or faulty taxation. By limiting the amount of investment in residential real estate, such factors would result in a poorer average quality of the housing stock than is socially desirable.

Richard F. Muth

Housing and the State: The Responsibilities of Government

Chapter 3. Housing and the State: The Responsibilities of Government

Abstract

The object of this short paper is to discuss the role of the State in the field of housing, to show how complex are the ramifications of ‘the housing problem’, and to analyse a few of the significant economic issues related to housing policy. Obviously in a short paper the discussion must be highly selective and illustrative rather than comprehensive. This would be the case even if attention were restricted to one country: it must be very much more so when one ranges over a large number of countries at different levels of economic development and with different political and economic systems.

J. B. Cullingworth

A Disaggregated Housing Market Model

Chapter 4. A Disaggregated Housing Market Model

Abstract

The housing market has certain characteristic features, which distinguish it from the majority of other commodity markets. These special features are due to the supply side. A house or flat is a capital good of unusually long life. It is geographically fixed. The production costs per unit are high.

Per Holm

Rent Control as an Instrument of Housing Policy

Chapter 5. Rent Control as an Instrument of Housing Policy

Abstract

Two main problems are discussed in the present paper: (1) the usefulness of rent control as an instrument of housing policy, and hence the effects of such control, and (2) the possibilities of realizing the goals of housing policy by other methods, without rent control.

Assar Lindbeck

Some Aspects of A Mixed Housing Market

Chapter 6. Some Aspects of A Mixed Housing Market

Abstract

During the last decades extensive price- and rent-regulating measures have been in operation on the Swedish housing market. Today the Rent Control Act of 1942 covers, broadly speaking, almost all rented flats in multi-family houses owned by private landlords and small housing co-operatives in the towns and other large urban areas. Privately financed one-family houses are exempt from rent control, irrespective of their geographical situation. Other categories exempt are flats in multi-family houses in rural and small urban districts, and all of the increasing number of dwelling-units in municipally owned, non-profit social housing corporations. The large cooperatives operating on a nation-wide scale are classified for the purposes of rent control with the non-profit corporations.

Ingemar Stahl

On The Economic Effects of Rent Control in Denmark

Chapter 7. On The Economic Effects of Rent Control in Denmark

Abstract

From the point of view of economics the most important feature of houses is their exceptional durability in consequence of which the annual addition of new apartments or houses amounts to only a few per cent of the total stock. In most countries at most times the annual growth amounted to only some one to three per cent of the physical stock. Though these figures underestimate the economically relevant rate of growth by ignoring changes in quality, it is obvious that in periods of rapidly rising aggregate real income a housing shortage in the sense of increasing relative scarcity of house room is apt to arise.

Jorgen H. Gelting

Determinants Of Fluctuations In House-Building In Denmark 1880–1940

Chapter 8. Determinants Of Fluctuations In House-Building In Denmark 1880–1940

Abstract

During the inter-war period it became gradually accepted by most Danish economists and politicians that house-building is very sensitive to short-run variations in the long-term interest rate. The introduction of this view was probably mainly due to two circumstances: one was the heavy building crisis in 1907–8 accompanied by bank failures and shortage of money; another was the impact of Wicksell’s theories on Danish economists. Since then it has been accepted almost as a matter of fact that house-building must be influenced strongly by short-term fluctuations in the long-term interest rate. Reference is mostly made to theoretical considerations—investment calculations in durable equipment—and rarely to thorough empirical investigations.

E. Hoffmeyer, K. Mordhorst

Home Finance and Housing Quality in Ageing Neighbourhoods

Chapter 9. Home Finance and Housing Quality in Ageing Neighbourhoods

Abstract

This paper is directed to the problem of mortgage financing for old, inexpensive, one- and two-family homes that are not competitive with new construction, but are at or above minimum code standards; and to the relationship of this problem to the level of expenditures for the maintenance and improvement of these homes. In American cities, it appears that such structures constitute as much as 15 percent of the total occupied inventory.². Moreover, numerous additional. dwellings, now in serious violation of local codes, were at some prior time no doubt in this category. The matter of adequate financing for ageing sectors of the stock is, therefore, a large component of the total residential finance problem. It is also a subject which American housing policy, in its emphasis on new construction and on rehabilitation programmes that operate largely outside normal market mechanisms, has almost completely ignored.

William G. Grigsby

Housing Taxation and Housing Policy

Chapter 10. Housing Taxation and Housing Policy

Abstract

In much of the world, the supply of housing is largely determined by private investment decisions; in some other countries, housing investment decisions are public ones in large part, but housing is offered at close to economic prices, and consumer decisions as to the disposition of consumption expenditures have a bearing on the level and composition of the housing stock. In either situation — wherever private investment and/or consumption decisions heavily influence the resolution of a country’s housing ‘problem’ — governmental housing policy measures include not only the familiar positive financial inducements in the form of subsidies and favourable credit terms but also the negative instrument of taxes on housing.

Richard Netzer

The Future of Federal Housing Policies in the United States

Chapter 11. The Future of Federal Housing Policies in the United States

Abstract

The first federal housing policies in the United States, as expressed in federal legislation, were developed in 1933. In the intervening 32 years an enormous amount of legislation dealing with a wide variety of housing and land use problems has been enacted with varying degrees of effectiveness.¹ On the explicit asumption that the factors which contributed to the success or failure of policies in the past will continue to influence the success or failure of policies in the future, it is the purpose of this paper to examine, albeit very briefly, certain segments of federal programmes in order to identify the most significant elements associated with their operation. Specifically, three general questions are examined:

James Gillies

Housing Policy and Housing-System Models in Some Socialist Countries’

Chapter 12. Housing Policy and Housing-System Models in Some Socialist Countries

Abstract

In this paper I shall try to analyse a number of variants of the housing-system model prevalent in the socialist countries of Europe and to outline the tendencies of housing policy. When I speak of a ‘model’ here, I mean something rather different from what is generally meant by an economic model. In the paper which follows the word model will be used to signify the fundamental principles which characterize the organization and working of the housing system within a given economic system.2 Just as one may speak, in this sense, of different models of the socialist economy, one may also speak of different models of the housing system. What is meant are not theoretical macro-economic models, but institutional models.³

Adam Andrzejewski

The Place of Housing Expenditure in the Total Consumption of A Population

Chapter 13. The Place of Housing Expenditure in the Total Consumption of A Population

Abstract

This study is a statistical approach to the question of the place and role of housing in social consumption in the light of the experience gained by People’s Poland as a socialist country. What is particularly important in the analysis of consumption is to examine the proportion of housing expenditure in the total expenses of the population.

Tadeusz Przeciszewski

The Housing Situation and Problems in Czechoslovakia

Chapter 14. The Housing Situation and Problems in Czechoslovakia

Abstract

In order to understand the present problems of housing in Czechoslovakia the development of the country after 1945 should be considered. In principle, three phases in housing policy should be distinguished. The first covers roughly the five years of post-war reconstruction; the second the years from 1950 till 1959, when the first programme of house-building was published and co-operative building introduced; the third phase, since 1960, is marked by a quick increase in the participation of the population in solving the housing problem.

Jiri Musil

Housing Problems In Developing Countries

Chapter 15. Housing Problems In Developing Countries

Abstract

Dwelling conditions are one of the basic elements of social development. That is why through the concept of social development and the concept of balancing the economic and social development a principled concept has been given about the place of the housing economy and dwelling conditions in the socio-economic system. The definition of social development and of factors of its promotion is the starting point and to a certain extent also the theoretical basis, for the formulation of a principled attitude about housing policy.

Ljubinka Pjanic

Housing in Africa: Some Problems and Major Policy Issues

Chapter 16. Housing in Africa: Some Problems and Major Policy Issues

Abstract

The present note attempts to provide a cursory review of some of the main housing problems facing the African continent and of the major policy issues involved. Within the limits of brevity imposed by the organizers of the conference, it will not be possible to substantiate any of the statements of this paper with statistical evidence or with bibliographical references. However, the note is based on the numerous studies carried out by the secretariat of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, to whose documents the interested reader might refer for further details.

D. A. Turin

Housing in Israel

Chapter 17. Housing in Israel

Abstract

The relevance of Israel’s experience in housing for comparison with other developing countries can be evaluated only on the basis of some knowledge of Israel’s general economic development, problems, and achievements. Consequently, some general background material on the Israel economy is presented first. This is followed by a discussion of developments in housing, divided into goals and developments, the roles of public and private housing and quantitative aspects. Finally, some current and future problems and prospects are considered.

Nadav Halevi

Changes in the Output of The building Industry as A Factor in the Development of Home-Building

Chapter 18. Changes in the Output of the Building Industry as A Factor in the Development of Home-Building

Abstract

Poland is faced with a difficult housing situation, the principal features of which are the shortage of homes compared with the number of families, a high density of occupants in the existing living space and the unsatisfactory standard of a large proportion of this accommodation.

Edward Kuminek

Changes in the Output of Thebuilding Industry as A Factor in the Development of Home-Building

Chapter 19. Some Economic Problems of Housing in the U.S.S.R.

Abstract

Today, housing is one of the most burning problems in nearly all the countries of the world. It is a matter of great urgency in the U.S.S.R. as well. Since the very first years following the October Revolution the Soviet Government has been doing its utmost to ensure a rapid growth of housing construction. The successful development of the national economy enabled the Government to increase, from year to year, allocations for the expansion of the housing resources of the country.

V. A. Nazarevsky

Report on the Proceedings

Frontmatter

Summary Record of the Debate

Abstract

Dr. Halevi, in opening the discussion, said that Professor Donnison’s paper dealt with the important inter-relationship between economic institutions through which policies have to be implemented arid the political realities which determine the policy goals of each country. The main object of Donnison’s paper was to convince us that housing policy is extremely complex and that it cannot be fully understood without regard to all or most of the social science disciplines. In no other paper presented to the Conference were there so many provocative statements per page and Dr. Halevi had some difficulty in deciding which of the many topics raised to choose for discussion — a difficulty increased by a disconcerting habit Professor Donnison had of slipping in a qualifying statement just as one was poised to pounce on a generalization.

Adela Adam Nevitt

Backmatter