STRUCTURAL ESTIMATION OF RESIDENTIAL MOBILITY AND HOUSING TENURE CHOICE*

ABSTRACT. This study is devoted to studying households'decisions to move and whether to rent or own after moving. It employs dynamic discrete choice models which condition households'decisions on their circumstances at every point in time during the length of the observation while accounting for individual heterogeneity. The results show that key dynamic elements, captured by means of lagged dependent variables, as well as household heterogeneity, are significant determinants of the tenure choice and mobility decisions. Moreover, homeowners are found to be responsive to housing market conditions when adjusting their housing stock. Housing-price appreciation is found to discourage renters from becoming homeowners. Finally, our results reject the proportional monetary transaction costs specification suggesting that monetary transaction costs might be fixed.     

北京市居民租赁住房可支付能力及空间分异研究

长期以来，我国租赁住房市场被严重边缘化，“十三五”规划明确提出建立租购并举的住房制度，彰显了让住房回归“居住属性”特征。住房租赁市场成为研究热点，而居民的租赁住房可支付能力是其关键。本文将保障性租赁住房与商品性租赁住房合为一体作为研究对象，从我国住房租赁市场的现状出发，客观评价不同人群的家庭可支配收入、最低非住房消费标准、住房补贴比例等指标，在此基础上定义人均租赁住房可支付能力指数，用于评估不同人群的可支付能力。结合目前的租赁住房市场的供给情况，运用GIS软件分析居民可支付能力的空间特征，分析北京市现有租赁住房与居民租房可支付能力匹配情况，对于合理制定多层次租赁住房市场政策具有参考意义。     

Dynamic road pricing and the value of time and reliability

High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes that use dynamic pricing to manage congestion and generate revenue are increasingly popular. In this paper, we estimate the behavioral response of drivers to dynamic pricing in an HOT lane. The challenge in estimation lies in the simultaneity of price and demand: the structure of dynamic tolling ensures that prices increase as more drivers enter the HOT lane. Prior research has found that higher prices in HOT lanes increase usage. We find that after controlling for simultaneity HOT drivers instead respond to tolls in a manner consistent with economic theory. The average response to a 10 percent increase in the toll is a 1.6 percent reduction in usage. Drivers primarily value travel reliability over time savings, although there is heterogeneity in the relative values of time and reliability based on time of day and destination to or from work. The results highlight the importance of both controlling for simultaneity when estimating demand for dynamically priced toll roads and treating HOT lanes with dynamic prices as a differentiated product with bundled attributes.     

租购同权”政策对学区房溢价的影响研究——基于空间特征价格模型的广州实证

在公共服务对住房市场的影响研究领域，学校质量的资本化效应一直是重要话题。本文借鉴边界固定效应思路，使用广州市2016和2019年136所重点小学周边学区房与相邻非学区房的配对面板数据，利用空间特征价格模型定量测度了不同质量等级教育资源的资本化效应，使用双重差分模型检验了“租购同权”政策对重点小学学区房房价和租金溢价的影响。研究结果表明：①广州市教育质量已部分资本化于住房价格和租金之中，且教育资源越优质，资本化程度越高。②“租购同权”政策的实施，并未带来学区房房价和租金溢价的显著变化。③“租购同权”政策对不同质量等级的重点小学学区房房价影响存在异质性，政策实施后省级重点小学的学区房溢价上升，区级重点小学的学区房溢价下降。④“租购同权”政策对于不同区域重点小学学区房房价和租金溢价的影响无显著差异。本文的研究结论可以为制定教育资源供给与配置的均衡化和公平性政策提供参考。     

The Effects Of Impact Fees On Multifamily Housing Construction*

Abstract. Development impact fees may create more housing opportunities for lower‐income households within suburban areas if there is a fiscal incentive behind the adoption of exclusionary land‐use regulations. Using panel data estimation techniques that allow us to control for unobservable heterogeneity and potential endogeneities, we estimate the effects of different types of impact fees on multifamily housing construction using data from Florida counties. Impact fees earmarked for public services other than for offsite water and sewer system improvements are found to expand the stock of multifamily housing construction within inner suburban areas. Water/sewer impact fees, on the other hand, are found to reduce construction throughout the entire metropolitan area.     

Artificial Scarcity in Housebuilding and the Impact on Affordability: The Return of Absolute Rent

The slow response of volume housebuilders to changes in demand has been cited as a contributing cause of a global crisis of housing affordability and allegations of land banking have persistently dogged the industry. This article reviews the supply responsiveness of speculative housebuilders in the United Kingdom and Australia through the neglected Marxian analytic category of absolute rent. Absolute rent directs attention to the relationship between the value of land and the cost of housing and models a market in which landowners may withdraw land from supply to inflate prices. Through the lens of absolute rent, the real estate practices of the housebuilding industry can be understood as a strategy of artificial scarcity straddling land and housing markets. The findings of this investigation demonstrate the insights to be gained by a return to absolute rent that valuably expand the current debate on the supply and cost of housing.     

Racial rent differences in U.S. housing markets: Evidence from the housing voucher program

This paper exploits an unusually rich data set to estimate racial differences in the rents paid for identical housing in the same neighborhood in U.S. housing markets and to show how they vary with neighborhood racial composition. Results suggest that black households pay more for identical housing in identical neighborhoods than their white counterparts and that this rent gap increases with the fraction of the neighborhood white. In neighborhoods with the smallest fraction white, the premium is about 0.6%. In neighborhoods with the largest fraction white, it is about 2.4%. This pattern holds across different types of areas.     

Monocentricity and Directional Heterogeneity: A Conditional Parametric Approach

The basic monocentric city model implies a decreasing relationship between distance to the Central Business District and outcome variables such as population density, housing prices, land rent, and income. Implicitly, the monocentric model implies directional homogeneity, that is, the distance effect does not depend on the direction in which it is being measured. Only a few works have analyzed the problem of directional heterogeneity. A new conditional parametric approach is introduced to deal with the issue. We study how this approach performs under different spatial patterns comparing with several other methods. An application to the spatial distribution of wage income in the municipality of Madrid is carried out to illustrate the main characteristics of the method and to show the comparative advantages.     

DISCRETE SPATIAL CHOICE MODELS FOR AGGREGATE DESTINATIONS*

ABSTRACT. In problems of spatial choice, the choice set is typically more aggregated than the one considered by decision-makers, often because choice data are available only at the aggregate level. These aggregate choice units will exhibit heterogeneity in utility and in size. To be consistent with utility maximization, a choice model must estimate choice probabilities on the basis of the maximum utility within heterogeneous aggregates. The ordinary multinomial logit model applied to aggregate choice units fails this criterion as it is estimated on the basis of average utility. In this paper, we derive and discuss a model which utilizes the theory underlying the nested logit model to estimate the appropriate maximum utilities of aggregates. We also demonstrate that the aggregate alternative error terms are asymptotically Gumbel, thereby relaxing the assumption of extreme value distributed error terms. This is accomplished with help from the asymptotic theory of extremes.     

THE IMPACT OF COMMUTING TIME ON YOUTH'S SCHOOL PERFORMANCE

Using Brazilian data, we estimate the impact of commuting duration on students' performance using distance to closest schools as an instrumental variable. In addition, we also use identification through heteroskedasticity, which does not rely on exclusion restrictions, and estimate bounds for the treatment effect in case there is remaining bias from unobservables. We find strong and consistent evidence that duration of commuting has a negative causal effect on academic achievement. Moreover, the relatively small heterogeneity across quantiles of test score makes us believe that public transportation policies targeted at students can promote education not only for those less well‐off.     

中国城市社区的异质性社会结构与街坊/邻里关系研究

中国城市社区的邻里交往自从住房市场化以来一直处于较低水平,本文从个体、家庭和社区三方面分析促进街坊/邻里关系水平的因素。研究发现,高度异质性社区中的街邻关系水平低于低度异质性社区,具有普遍性的异质性负效应,在社区层次对街坊/邻里关系水平发挥选择性削弱作用。不同异质性社会结构的城市社区中,家庭纽带提供的情感和切实的支持对家庭成员的街邻融合有积极的作用。居民社团活动参与率在不同异质性类型社区中能有效提高街邻关系水平,表现出并存的正效应。社区组织举办的活动频率能促进街邻关系水平的前提是居民能成为参与者。街邻关系水平较低的群体,动员性的活动参与可以提高其街邻关系水平。     

DRS. MUTH AND MILLS MEET DR. TIEBOUT: INTEGRATING LOCATION‐SPECIFIC AMENITIES INTO MULTI‐COMMUNITY EQUILIBRIUM MODELS*

ABSTRACT We consider the problem of integrating spatial amenities into locational equilibrium models with multiple jurisdictions. We provide sufficient conditions under which models that assume a single housing price in each community continue to apply in the presence of location‐specific amenities that vary both within and across communities. If these conditions are satisfied, the models, estimation methods, and results in Epple and Sieg (1999) are valid in the presence of (potentially unobserved) location‐specific amenities. We also show how to construct sufficient statistics that capture location specific spatial heterogeneity. We apply these techniques using data from the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. We find that these amenity measures capture proximity to important local employment centers as well as heterogeneity in school quality within a given school district.     

THE IMPACT OF RENT CONTROLS IN NON-WALRASIAN MARKETS: AN AGENT-BASED MODELING APPROACH

ABSTRACT.  We use agent-based models to consider rent ceilings in non-Walrasian housing markets, where bargaining between landlord and tenant leads to exchange at a range of prices. In the non-Walrasian setting agents who would be extramarginal in the Walrasian setting frequently are successful in renting, and actually account for a significant share of the units rented. This has several implications. First, rent ceilings above the Walrasian equilibrium price (WEP) can affect the market outcome. Second, rent ceilings that reduce the number of units rented do not necessarily reduce total market surplus. Finally, the distributional impact of rent controls differs from the Walrasian setting.     

HEDONIC PRICING WHEN HOUSING IS ENDOGENOUS: THE VALUE OF ACCESS TO THE TRANS‐ISRAEL HIGHWAY*

Standard hedonic house pricing assumes that house prices are independent of the intangible to be priced. A methodology is proposed in which the supply as well as the demand for housing depends on the intangible. The methodology is applied to value access to the Trans‐Israel Highway (TIH). Using spatial panel data (2002–2008) we show that TIH had two effects on the housing market. It increased house prices in locations with greater access to TIH, and it affected housing construction. Standard hedonic pricing would have underestimated the value of access because it ignores the effects of housing construction on the intangible to be priced. House prices began to increase three years before TIH was inaugurated, but housing construction did not anticipate the inauguration of TIH.     

TRAFFIC EXTERNALITIES AND SINGLE-FAMILY HOUSE PRICES*

ABSTRACT. This study is the first to lend empirical support to the common belief that traffic intensity affects property values. Using a standard hedonic pricing model, this paper investigates the price effects on housing of traffic within a neighborhood. Results using data on single-family housing transactions for two different locations in a medium-sized city show a substantial negative price effect of traffic externalities. The magnitude of the effect is shown to be location specific.     

城市长租公寓的空间布局与影响机制实证研究——以深圳为例

长租公寓作为住房市场的新兴业态，是贯彻国家“租购并举”住房政策的重要保障。本文以深圳为例，基于迈点研究院的数据，通过GIS空间分析工具，探讨长租公寓的空间布局及影响机制。研究表明：(1)深圳长租公寓空间布局呈现空间集聚性、距离衰减性、类型分异性特征，具体表现为紧邻中心城区的空间集聚性，从中心城区边缘向外围递减的距离衰减性，酒店、公寓、房地产系长租公寓热点区呈中心城区向外扩展态势的类型分异性；(2)地铁、超市商城、常住人口是影响长租公寓空间布局的主要因素，其影响作用存在空间异质性；(3)运用地租和新消费者理论，从供求视角构建长租公寓空间布局的影响机制。本研究可丰富新兴住房业态空间集聚模式和中国住房研究。     

ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN THE NETHERLANDS: PRODUCTIVITY,UTILITY, AND SORTING*

ABSTRACT This paper identifies the impact of cultural diversity on local economies, by explaining spatial disparities in wages and housing prices across Dutch cities using unique individual panel data of homeowners during the period 1999 and 2008. We distinguish between the effects of spatial sorting based on individual heterogeneity, interactions‐based productivity effects, and consumer amenities while controlling for interactions between the labor and housing market. In line with previous literature, we find a positive effect of cultural diversity on average housing prices. After controlling for spatial sorting, the effect of cultural diversity on housing prices is negative. The negative impact of cultural diversity on local housing markets is likely driven by a causal effect between the presence of immigrants and neighborhood quality that outweighs a positive effect of immigrant‐induced diversity in consumption goods.     

Amenities,affordability, and housing vouchers

Against the background of an emerging rental affordability crisis, we examine how the standard rule that households should not spend more than 30% of their income on housing expenditures leads to inefficiencies in the context of federal low‐income housing policy. We quantify how the current practice of locally indexing individual rent subsidies in the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program regardless of quality‐of‐life conditions implicitly incentivizes recipients to live in high‐amenity areas. We also assess a novel scenario for housing policy reform that adjusts subsidies by the amenity expenditures of low‐income households, permitting national HCV program coverage to increase.     

The Role of Regulations in the Spanish Housing Dispossession Crisis: Towards Dispossession by Regulations?

This paper explores the role of regulations and economic policies implemented in post-crisis Spain in boosting a housing dispossession crisis. The article first claims that the post-2008 crisis has implied shifts in the mechanisms of rent extraction from housing in Spain. Second, it is argued that those shifts in rent extraction have been fuelled by the post-crisis economic policies and regulatory frameworks implemented since 2008. Third, it is claimed that dispossession has been a central strategy used by banks to cope with the new post-crisis regulatory framework. The article thus analyses the different strategies carried out by banks and hedge funds to enforce foreclosures and other dispossession strategies since 2008. Furthermore, it explores the different motivations and ideologies that led to the roll out of different banking regulations and the variegated impacts that these regulations have had on Spanish bank and hedge fund strategies vis-à-vis housing dispossession.