IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/chosxx/v37y2022i7p1198-1224.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An assessment of the spatial efficiency of tax benefits for home mortgages in Belgium

Author

Listed:
  • Guillaume Xhignesse
  • Gerlinde Verbist

Abstract

In this paper, we focus on the tax deductibility of mortgage loans, which is a key measure of housing policies in many countries. Several studies have shown that the distribution of the benefits of this measure runs counter to the vertical equity principle. We contribute to the existing literature by addressing the distribution of the tax deductibility of mortgage loans considering the spatial outcomes of this policy. We use Belgian data to measure the impact of this policy on households' income and inequality and poverty in different types of areas. We show that this measure favours suburban households and subsidizes urban sprawl. Exogenous factors such as past housing policies and homeownership determinants play a key role in this phenomenon. We also simulate the distributional impact of three stylized reforms of the deductibility of mortgage loans in Belgium. These simulations show that the distributional outcomes could be improved on both social and spatial sides.

Suggested Citation

  • Guillaume Xhignesse & Gerlinde Verbist, 2022. "An assessment of the spatial efficiency of tax benefits for home mortgages in Belgium," Housing Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(7), pages 1198-1224, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:chosxx:v:37:y:2022:i:7:p:1198-1224
    DOI: 10.1080/02673037.2018.1562057
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/02673037.2018.1562057
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/02673037.2018.1562057?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    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:taf:chosxx:v:37:y:2022:i:7:p:1198-1224. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/chos20 .

    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.