Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Public Housing Units vs. Housing Vouchers: Accessibility, Local Public Goods, and Welfare

Contents:

Author Info

  • Charles Ka Yui Leung

    (City University of Hong Kong)

  • Sinan Sarpca

    (Koc University)

  • Kuzey Yilmaz

    (University of Rochester)

Abstract

We develop a general equilibrium model of residential choice and study the effects of two housing aid policies, public housing units and housing vouchers. Land is differentiated by both residential accessibility and local public goods, and the provision levels of local public goods are determined by property tax revenues and neighborhood compositions. Households differ in their incomes and preferences for local public goods. Housing aid policies are financed by general income taxes. We discuss how the location of public housing units is a fundamental policy variable, in addition to the numbers and sizes of units, and argue that vouchers not only cause less distortion for social welfare compared to public housing, but may also improve overall welfare.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://rcer.econ.rochester.edu/RCERPAPERS/rcer_574.pdf
File Function: full text
Download Restriction: None

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by University of Rochester - Center for Economic Research (RCER) in its series RCER Working Papers with number 574.

as in new window
Length: 38 pages
Date of creation: Sep 2012
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:roc:rocher:574

Contact details of provider:
Postal: University of Rochester, Center for Economic Research, Department of Economics, Harkness 231 Rochester, New York 14627 U.S.A.

Related research

Keywords: Public housing; housing vouchers; housing policy; welfare; residential location choice; local public goods; endogenous sorting;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Charles M. Tiebout, 1956. "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64, pages 416.
  2. Epple, Dennis & Filimon, Radu & Romer, Thomas, 1993. "Existence of voting and housing equilibrium in a system of communities with property taxes," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 585-610, November.
  3. Eric A. Hanushek & Sinan Sarpça & Kuzey Yilmaz, 2011. "Private Schools and Residential Choices: Accessibility, Mobility, and Welfare," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 44.
  4. Charles A. M. de Bartolome & Stephen L. Ross, 2002. "Equilibria with Local Governments and Commuting: Income Sorting vs. Income Mixing," Working papers 2002-01, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised Mar 2003.
  5. Ellickson, Bryan, 1971. "Jurisdictional Fragmentation and Residential Choice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(2), pages 334-39, May.
  6. Kath Hulse & Bill Randolph, 2005. "Workforce Disincentive Effects of Housing Allowances and Public Housing for Low Income Households in Australia," European Journal of Housing Policy, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 5(2), pages 147-165, August.
  7. Smeeding, Timothy M, et al, 1993. "Poverty, Inequality, and Family Living Standards Impacts across Seven Nations: The Effect of Noncash Subsidies for Health, Education and Housing," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 39(3), pages 229-56, September.
  8. Edward L. Glaeser & Matthew E. Kahn & Jordan Rappaport, 2000. "Why Do the Poor Live in Cities?," NBER Working Papers 7636, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  9. Eric Hanushek & Kuzey Yilmaz, 2010. "Household Location and Schools in Metropolitan Areas with Heterogeneous Suburbs: Tiebout, Alonso, and Government Policy," Discussion Papers 09-012, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
  10. Edgar O. Olsen, 2003. "Housing Programs for Low-Income Households," NBER Chapters, in: Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, pages 365-442 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  11. Hugo Priemus, 2000. "Rent Subsidies in the USA and Housing Allowances in The Netherlands: Worlds Apart," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(3), pages 700-712, 09.
  12. Fernandez, Raquel & Rogerson, Richard, 1996. "Income Distribution, Communities, and the Quality of Public Education," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 111(1), pages 135-64, February.
  13. Bingley, Paul & Walker, Ian, 2001. "Housing Subsidies and Work Incentives in Great Britain," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(471), pages C86-103, May.
  14. Thomas J. Nechyba, 2000. "Mobility, Targeting, and Private-School Vouchers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 130-146, March.
  15. Hanushek, Eric & Yilmaz, Kuzey, 2007. "The complementarity of Tiebout and Alonso," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 243-261, June.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Leung, Tin Cheuk & Tsang, Kwok Ping, 2012. "Love thy neighbor: Income distribution and housing preferences," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 322-335.
  2. Benoît Schmutz, 2012. "Public Housing Quotas and Segregation," Working Papers halshs-00793467, HAL.
  3. Benoît Schmutz, 2012. "Public Housing Quotas and Segregation," AMSE Working Papers 1228, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, Marseille, France.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:roc:rocher:574

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Gabriel Mihalache).

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.