IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ire/issued/v11n022008p1-31.html

Are Mortgage Loans the New Toasters? The Roles of Housing Demand and Political Patronage in Mexican Housing Finance Author

Author

Listed:
  • Jenny Schuetz

    (City College of New York)

Abstract

This paper tests for evidence of political manipulation in the allocation of subsidized mortgage loans in Mexico during the 1990’s. First, I develop a baseline model of loan allocation across states as a function of housing need, eligibility for lending programs, and administrative capacity to deliver housing. Then, I add measures of political competitiveness to the model. Empirical results suggest that the two largest lenders generally allocated loans according to their eligibility criteria, granting more loans to states with more income- and employment-eligible households and poorer quality housing. Tests for political manipulation suggest that more loans were, in fact, granted in federal election years and in states where the ruling party did not perform well in the previous election. However, the numbers lack statistical significance. As a result, it can be assumed that political motivation played a relatively small role in the allocation of loans.

Suggested Citation

  • Jenny Schuetz, 2008. "Are Mortgage Loans the New Toasters? The Roles of Housing Demand and Political Patronage in Mexican Housing Finance Author," International Real Estate Review, Global Social Science Institute, vol. 11(2), pages 1-31.
    • Handle: RePEc:ire:issued:v:11:n:02:2008:p:1-31
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.gssinst.org/irer/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Vol-11-no-2-Are-mortgage-loans-the-new-toasters.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. George J. Stigler, 1971. "The Theory of Economic Regulation," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 2(1), pages 3-21, Spring.
    2. Gary S. Becker & George J. Stigler, 1974. "Law Enforcement, Malfeasance, and Compensation of Enforcers," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(1), pages 1-18, January.
    3. World Bank, 2002. "Mexico Urban Development : A Contribution to a National Urban Strategy, Volume 2. Background Studies," World Bank Publications - Reports 15375, The World Bank Group.
    4. World Bank, 2002. "Mexico Urban Development : A Contribution to a National Urban Strategy, Volume 1. Main Report," World Bank Publications - Reports 15396, The World Bank Group.
    5. Charles Leung & Sam Tang & Nicolaas Groenewold, 2006. "Growth Volatility and Technical Progress: A Simple Rent-seeking Model," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 88(2), pages 159-178, August.
    6. Edward L. Glaeser & Andrei Shleifer, 2003. "The Rise of the Regulatory State," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(2), pages 401-425, June.
    7. Collier, Ruth Berins & Collier, David, 1979. "Inducements versus Constraints: Disaggregating “Corporatism”," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 73(4), pages 967-986, December.
    8. Alberto Alesina & Nouriel Roubini & Gerald D. Cohen, 1997. "Political Cycles and the Macroeconomy," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262510944, December.
    9. Richard A. Posner, 1974. "Theories of Economic Regulation," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 5(2), pages 335-358, Autumn.
    10. Rogoff, Kenneth, 1990. "Equilibrium Political Budget Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 21-36, March.
    11. La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 1999. "The Quality of Government," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 222-279, April.
    12. Caselli, Francesco & Morelli, Massimo, 2004. "Bad politicians," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3-4), pages 759-782, March.
    13. Schady, Norbert R., 2000. "The Political Economy of Expenditures by the Peruvian Social Fund (FONCODES), 1991–95," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 94(2), pages 289-304, June.
    14. Enikolopov, Ruben & Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina, 2007. "Decentralization and political institutions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(11-12), pages 2261-2290, December.
    15. Levitt, Steven D, 1997. "Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 270-290, June.
    16. Fox, Jonathan A, 1994. "The Difficult Transition from Clientelism to Citizenship: Lessons from Mexico," Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, Working Paper Series qt4n4746hk, Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, UC Santa Cruz.
    17. World Bank, 2002. "Mexico - Low Income Housing : Issues and Options, Volume 1. Main Report," World Bank Publications - Reports 15366, The World Bank Group.
    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


    Cited by:

    1. Monkkonen, Paavo, 2016. "Where do Property Rights Matter More? Explaining the Variation in Demand for Property Titles across Cities in Mexico," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 67-78.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Livnat, Joshua & Rubin, Amir & Segal, Dan, 2025. "Divided we fall: Congressional cycles, the stock market and firm performance," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    2. Djankov, Simeon & Glaeser, Edward & La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei, 2003. "The new comparative economics," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 595-619, December.
    3. Niklas Potrafke, 2006. "Political Effects on the Allocation of Public Expenditures: Empirical Evidence from OECD Countries," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 653, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    4. Paula López-Villalba & Christian Ruzzier, 2026. "Ideology and Corruption," Working Papers 178, Universidad de San Andres, Departamento de Economia, revised Mar 2026.
    5. James E. Alt & David Dreyer Lassen, 2003. "The Political Economy of Institutions and Corruption in American States," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 15(3), pages 341-365, July.
    6. Spyros Skouras & Nicos Christodoulakis, 2014. "Electoral misgovernance cycles: evidence from wildfires and tax evasion in Greece," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 159(3), pages 533-559, June.
    7. Mertzanis, Charilaos, 2020. "Financial supervision structure, decentralized decision-making and financing constraints," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 13-37.
    8. C. Bee & Shawn Moulton, 2015. "Political budget cycles in U.S. municipalities," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 16(4), pages 379-403, November.
    9. Nadia Fiorino & Emma Galli & Fabio Padovano, 2013. "Do fiscal decentralization and government fragmentation affect corruption in different ways? Evidence from a panel data analysis," Chapters, in: Santiago Lago-Peñas & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez (ed.), The Challenge of Local Government Size, chapter 5, pages 121-147, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Spyros Skouras & Nicos Christodoulakis, 2011. "Electoral Misgovernance Cycles: Evidence from wildfires and tax evasion in Greece and elsewhere," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 47, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    11. Jacopo Costa & Roberto Ricciuti, 2013. "Sources for the Euro Crisis: Bad Regulation and Weak Institutions in Peripheral Europe," Working Papers 15/2013, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    12. Caselli, Francesco & Morelli, Massimo, 2004. "Bad politicians," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3-4), pages 759-782, March.
    13. Margarita Katsimi & Vassilis Sarantides, 2012. "Do elections affect the composition of fiscal policy in developed, established democracies?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 151(1), pages 325-362, April.
    14. Eric Dubois, 2016. "Political business cycles 40 years after Nordhaus," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 166(1), pages 235-259, January.
    15. Sanjay Patnaik, 2019. "A cross-country study of collective political strategy: Greenhouse gas regulations in the European Union," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 50(7), pages 1130-1155, September.
    16. Xu, Cheng-Gang & Pistor, Katharina, 2003. "Law Enforcement under Incomplete Law: Theory and Evidence from Financial Market Regulation," CEPR Discussion Papers 3788, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    17. Edward L. Glaeser & Claudia Goldin, 2006. "Corruption and Reform: Introduction," NBER Chapters, in: Corruption and Reform: Lessons from America's Economic History, pages 3-22, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Banerjee, Dyuti S., 2006. "Lobbying and commercial software piracy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 139-155, March.
    19. Eric Dubois, 2016. "Political Business Cycles 40 Years after Nordhaus," Post-Print hal-01291401, HAL.
    20. Eric Dubois, 2016. "Political Business Cycles 40 Years after Nordhaus," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-01291401, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • L85 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Real Estate Services

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ire:issued:v:11:n:02:2008:p:1-31. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: IRER Graduate Assistant/Webmaster (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.gssinst.org/gssinst/index.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.