Housing vouchers for the poor

Can the nation's social programs survive the push toward leaner appropriations, a greater use of the market, and a narrower definition of the needy? A program to provide housing assistance for the poor is proposed that fills all these requirements. Housing vouchers are found to be cheaper than other housing programs and more satisfactory for participants. Moreover, the political climate augers well for the new approach.     

经济适用房还是公共租赁房?——对住房保障政策改革的反思

为了评估当前各地住房保障政策的改革,本文辨析了经适房的缺陷与成因.基于政策的演化过程通过前后对比发现,经适房政策正在向商品房与保障性住房严格分类管理的方向改革,影响其政策声誉与执行效果的制度缺陷已逐步得到改善.针对停建经适房转而兴办公租房的观点,本研究通过定性分析和模糊评价法发现,如果不能引入有效的激励机制和完善监管手段,采用公租房并不能消除经适房原有的大部分缺陷,除了一定程度上抑制腐败和扩大了保障范围之外,甚至有可能恶化住房保障水平.因此迫切需要对当前改革的理论与实践进行反思.     

Consumerism and the new poor

He is author of Applied Mathematical Demography; Population Change and Social Policy;and co-author (with Wilhelm Flieger) of World Populations: An Analysis of Vital Data.     

No Home for Housing: The Situation of the Commonwealth's Housing Policy Advisory Function

The Commonwealth's policy capacity with regard to housing policy and provision has been erratic and patchy. Partly this is because housing was not traditionally a formal Commonwealth responsibility but something in which Commonwealth governments episodically intervened, and partly it was because Commonwealth ministers often did not exercise demand for policy advice in this area. When policy capacity was exercised it tended to define housing narrowly as a welfare initiative, thereby limiting its conception and excluding other important questions and problems involved with housing as a policy domain. This trajectory meant that the advisory deficiencies of the Commonwealth were often exposed at exactly those times when they were most needed. It also meant that the Commonwealth lacked the detailed knowledge and understanding of housing issues when it was called upon to deliver various programs. The article argues that the Commonwealth needs to adopt a more strategic housing policy that addresses longer term needs as well as the economic, social and environmental consequences of its housing policy.     

安居基金:住房保障模式创新

现行的政府建设分配经济适用房和廉租房的住房保障制度存在许多问题和内在缺陷,应当改革.方向是政府不再出地出钱出力直接建设分配经济适用房和廉租房,转而用这些资源建立安居基金,以货币形式及时、普遍、直接地补贴低收入住房困难者,提高他们的住房消费能力,并进行动态调整.政府通过各种杠杆调节住房市场供给结构,使低收入住房困难者都能在市场上立即自主选择相应的住房,或租或购,达到效用最大化.     

Housing and populism

Abstract

The recent success of populist candidates in the UK and Continental Europe has sparked a major debate between those who view populism as a reaction of the economically ‘left behind’ and those who view it as a cultural ‘backlash’ by groups with declining social status, pointing to stark divisions between urban and rural areas, core and periphery. This paper bridges the economic and values-based approaches to populism by arguing that the geography of wealth inequality offers a convincing explanation for the pattern of populist vote share. Drawing on fine-grained house price data in the UK and France, it is shown that the pattern of house prices ? even within small districts ? plays a major part in shaping support for Brexit and Marine Le Pen. The findings illustrate how longstanding variation in local wealth shapes the geography of discontent and drives populist appeal. Populism, the article concludes, is primarily a politics of place, and place is a product, in part, of the housing market.     

Housing and the Welfare State in Norway

This article discusses housing and the welfare state in Norway in 1980 and 2005 by applying Esping‐Andersen's theories of welfare state regimes to this sector. How should Norwegian housing policy be understood in light of Esping‐Andersen's conceptual framework, and what is the impact of post‐industrial change? In 1980, Norwegian housing policy was mainly characterised by social‐democratic traits such as market regulation, substantial public expenditure and universal subsidies for both renters and a large owner‐occupied housing sector. The effects of post‐industrial changes, including deregulation of the credit and housing markets, marked a major turn in housing policy and the housing market in Norway. By 2005, Norwegian housing policy was mainly characterised by traits that are typical of a liberal welfare regime: market economics, low public expenditure and subsidies for small, targeted groups, while other segments of the Norwegian welfare state remain characterised by social‐democratic traits. Esping‐Andersen's claim that the effect of post‐industrial transformation was different in different welfare regimes is thus not supported by the case of the Norwegian housing sector.