Estimating mortgage prepayments and defaults in older federally assisted rental housing and the possible costs of preventing them

Abstract

An issue now facing the federal government is whether and, if so, how to intervene to prevent mortgage prepayments and defaults on federally assisted low‐income rental units. This paper presents the preliminary estimates of the potential scope of the problem in terms of the possible incidence and timing of these actions, and the costs of preventing them. The estimates are based on modified versions of the model developed for the National Low Income Housing Preservation Commission's study, Preventing the Disappearance of Low Income Housing.

An intermediate version of the modified model predicts 45 percent fewer defaults, 154,000 versus 280,000 units, and 45 percent lower total costs for preventing defaults, $4.6 billion versus $8.4 billion. On the other hand, 16 percent more prepayments are predicted, 283,000 versus 243,000 units. Estimated total costs for preventing prepayments are 17 percent lower, however — $8.5 billion versus $10.3 billion.     

The reorientation of place legislation in England in the 1690s

Summary

Mediating Conflict in the Swiss Diets of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries

The Helvetic Confederation developed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as a web of alliances between the most important urban and peasant republics (Orte) in the area of present‐day Switzerland. The only form of mediating conflicts laid down in the alliances was by tribunals of arbitration; but these were never recognised by all the Orte in the web of alliances and proved inadequate in the face of growing antagonisms and coalitions throughout the Confederacy. It became necessary to have recourse to political arrangements involving the interested parties. The forum for these arrangements was the Diets, meetings of deputies of all members of the Confederacy. These more or less represented the most important political forces. Difficulties arose only when there was no consensus in individual Orten and when the official deputies to the Diet represented only the magistrates (Obrigkeiten). In such cases it could happen, especially in matters of foreign policy, that individual groups went their own way and thwarted the decisions of the Diet. It usually took a long time to arrive at a consensus in the Diets because the deputies were bound by an ‘imperative mandate’ and the minority would mostly not accept the will of the majority. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries participation and the achievement of consensus were the conditions of joint action of the Helvetic Confederation.