IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v40y2003i5-6p973-992.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Trying to Understand Low-income Housing Subsidies: Lessons from the United States

Author

Listed:
  • William G. Grigsby

    (Department of City and Regional Planning, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA, grigsby@pobox.uperen.edu)

  • Steven C. Bourassa

    (School of Urban and Public Affairs, University of Louisville, 426 W Bloom Street, Louisville, KY 40208, USA, steven.bourassa@louisville.edu)

Abstract

This article asks why nations subsidise their low-income housing sectors and offers five reasons: to improve public health; to reduce societal injustice; to preserve the social order; to increase equality of opportunity; and, to accommodate population growth. After discussing those reasons in some detail, they are used as a framework for exploring some salient questions about low-income housing policy in the US. It is suggested that the framework would also be useful for analysis of low-income housing policies in other countries. It is concluded that the largest low-income housing subsidy programme in the US—the Section 8 voucher programme-is inapt.

Suggested Citation

  • William G. Grigsby & Steven C. Bourassa, 2003. "Trying to Understand Low-income Housing Subsidies: Lessons from the United States," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 40(5-6), pages 973-992, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:40:y:2003:i:5-6:p:973-992
    DOI: 10.1080/0042098032000074272
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/0042098032000074272
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/0042098032000074272?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Murray, Michael P, 1983. "Subsidized and Unsubsidized Housing Starts: 1961-1977," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 65(4), pages 590-597, November.
    2. Murray, Michael P, 1999. "Subsidized and Unsubsidized Housing Stocks 1935 to 1987: Crowding Out and Cointegration," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 107-124, January.
    3. Lawrence F. Katz & Jeffrey R. Kling & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 2001. "Moving to Opportunity in Boston: Early Results of a Randomized Mobility Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 116(2), pages 607-654.
    4. 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.
    5. Robert Haveman & Barbara Wolfe & James Spaulding, 1991. "Childhood events and circumstances influencing high school completion," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 28(1), pages 133-157, February.
    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. Achintya Ray, 2006. "A Class of Decomposable Poverty Measures With Public Transfers," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 9(3), pages 1-8.
    2. Paul MAKDISSI & Quentin WODON, 2004. "Can Risk Averse Private Entrepreneurs Efficiently Produce Low Income Housing?," Cahiers de recherche 04-06, Departement d'économique de l'École de gestion à l'Université de Sherbrooke.
    3. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:9:y:2006:i:3:p:1-8 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Jihad Dagher, 2018. "Regulatory Cycles: Revisiting the Political Economy of Financial Crises," IMF Working Papers 2018/008, International Monetary Fund.
    5. Hon-Kwong Lui, 2007. "The Redistributive Effect of Public Housing in Hong Kong," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 44(10), pages 1937-1952, September.
    6. Ekong, Christopher N. & Onye, Kenneth U., 2013. "Building Sustainable Cities in Nigeria: The Need for Mass and Social Housing Provision," MPRA Paper 88236, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Janet Currie & Firouz Gahvari, 2008. "Transfers in Cash and In-Kind: Theory Meets the Data," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(2), pages 333-383, June.
    2. Sinai, Todd & Waldfogel, Joel, 2005. "Do low-income housing subsidies increase the occupied housing stock?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(11-12), pages 2137-2164, December.
    3. Olsen, Edgar O. & Zabel, Jeffrey E., 2015. "US Housing Policy," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 887-986, Elsevier.
    4. Jeffrey R. Kling & Jens Ludwig & Lawrence F. Katz, 2005. "Neighborhood Effects on Crime for Female and Male Youth: Evidence from a Randomized Housing Voucher Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 120(1), pages 87-130.
    5. Lisa Sanbonmatsu & Jeffrey R. Kling & Greg J. Duncan & Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, 2006. "Neighborhoods and Academic Achievement: Results from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 41(4).
    6. Matias D. Cattaneo & Sebastian Galiani & Paul J. Gertler & Sebastian Martinez & Rocio Titiunik, 2009. "Housing, Health, and Happiness," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 75-105, February.
    7. Galiani, Sebastián & Gertler, Paul J. & Undurraga, Raimundo & Cooper, Ryan & Martínez, Sebastián & Ross, Adam, 2017. "Shelter from the storm: Upgrading housing infrastructure in Latin American slums," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 187-213.
    8. Laferrere, Anne & Le Blanc, David, 2004. "How do housing allowances affect rents? An empirical analysis of the French case," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 36-67, March.
    9. Richard Disney & John Gathergood & Stephen Machin & Matteo Sandi, 2020. "Does homeownership reduce crime? A radical housing reform in Britain," CEP Discussion Papers dp1685, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    10. Jeffrey R. Kling & Jeffrey B. Liebman & Lawrence F. Katz & Lisa Sanbonmatsu, 2004. "Moving to Opportunity and Tranquility: Neighborhood Effects on Adult Economic Self-Sufficiency and Health From a Randomized Housing Voucher Experiment," Working Papers 5, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    11. Nordvik, Viggo, 2006. "Selective housing policy in local housing markets and the supply of housing," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 279-292, December.
    12. Jacob, Brian A. & Ludwig, Jens & Miller, Douglas L., 2013. "The effects of housing and neighborhood conditions on child mortality," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 195-206.
    13. Jeffrey R Kling & Jeffrey B Liebman & Lawrence F Katz, 2007. "Experimental Analysis of Neighborhood Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(1), pages 83-119, January.
    14. repec:pri:cheawb:kling_mto481 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Eriksen, Michael D. & Rosenthal, Stuart S., 2010. "Crowd out effects of place-based subsidized rental housing: New evidence from the LIHTC program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(11-12), pages 953-966, December.
    16. Jeffrey R. Kling & Jens Ludwig & Lawrence F. Katz, 2004. "Youth Criminal Behavior in the Moving to Opportunity Experiment," Working Papers 6, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    17. Todd Sinai & Joel Waldfogel, "undated". "Do Low Income Housing Subsidies Increase Housing Consumption?," Zell/Lurie Center Working Papers 394, Wharton School Samuel Zell and Robert Lurie Real Estate Center, University of Pennsylvania.
    18. Disney, Richard & Gathergood, John & Machin, Stephen & Sandi, Matteo, 2020. "Does homeownership reduce crime? A radical housing reform from the UK," CFS Working Paper Series 651, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    19. repec:pri:indrel:dsp01tq57nr02d is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Chen, Jie & Nong, Huifu, 2016. "The heterogeneity of market supply effects of public housing provision: Empirical evidence from China," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 115-127.
    21. Eoin Corrigan, 2019. "The Scale and Impact of the Local Authority Rent Subsidy," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 50(1), pages 159-211.
    22. Lee, Chul-In, 2007. "Does provision of public rental housing crowd out private housing investment? A panel VAR approach," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 1-20, March.

    More about this item

    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:sae:urbstu:v:40:y:2003:i:5-6:p:973-992. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    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.