IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/bphupl/qt67d5x29s.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Rent Vouchers and the Price of Low-Income Housing

Author

Listed:
  • Susin, Scott

Abstract

Since the early 1980s, low-income housing subsidies have increasingly shifted towards vouchers which allow recipients to rent in the private market. By 1993, vouchers subsidized as many households as lived in traditional housing projects, although most low-income households did not receive any subsidies. This study investigates whether this policy has raised rents for unsubsidized poor households, as many analysts predicted when the program was conceived. The main finding is that low-income households in metropolitan areas with more vouchers have experienced faster rent increases than those where vouchers are less abundant. In the 90 biggest metropolitan areas, vouchers have raised rents by 16 percent on average, a large effect consistent with a low supply elasticity in the low quality rental housing market. Considered as a transfer program, this result implies that vouchers have caused a $8.2 billion increase in the total rent paid by low-income non-recipients, while only providing a subsidy of $5.8 billion to recipients, resulting in a net loss of $2.4 billion to low-income households.

Suggested Citation

  • Susin, Scott, 1999. "Rent Vouchers and the Price of Low-Income Housing," Berkeley Program on Housing and Urban Policy, Working Paper Series qt67d5x29s, Berkeley Program on Housing and Urban Policy.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:bphupl:qt67d5x29s
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/67d5x29s.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hanushek, Eric A & Rivkin, Steven G & Taylor, Lori L, 1996. "Aggregation and the Estimated Effects of School Resources," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(4), pages 611-627, November.
    2. C. Lance Barnett, 1979. "Expected and Actual Effects of Housing Allowances on Housing Prices," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 7(3), pages 277-297, September.
    3. Card, David & Krueger, Alan B, 1992. "Does School Quality Matter? Returns to Education and the Characteristics of Public Schools in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(1), pages 1-40, February.
    4. Christopher J. Mayer, 1993. "Taxes, income distribution, and the real estate cycle: why all houses do not appreciate at the same rate," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue May, pages 39-50.
    5. David M. Cutler & Edward L. Glaeser & Jacob L. Vigdor, 1999. "The Rise and Decline of the American Ghetto," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(3), pages 455-506, June.
    6. de Leeuw, Frank & Ekanem, Nkanta F, 1971. "The Supply of Rental Housing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(5), pages 806-817, December.
    7. Weicher, John C. & Thibodeau, Thomas G., 1988. "Filtering and housing markets: An empirical analysis," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 21-40, January.
    8. 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.
    9. Goetzmann, William N & Spiegel, Matthew, 1997. "A Spatial Model of Housing Returns and Neighborhood Substitutability," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 14(1-2), pages 11-31, Jan.-Marc.
    10. DiPasquale, Denise, 1999. "Why Don't We Know More about Housing Supply?," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 9-23, January.
    11. Rothenberg, Jerome & Galster, George C. & Butler, Richard V. & Pitkin, John R., 1991. "The Maze of Urban Housing Markets," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226729510, September.
    12. Harvey S. Rosen, 1985. "Housing Behavior and the Experimental Housing-Allowance Program: What Have We Learned?," NBER Chapters, in: Social Experimentation, pages 55-94, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Karl E. Case & Robert J. Shiller, 1994. "A decade of boom and bust in the prices of single-family homes: Boston and Los Angeles, 1983 to 1993," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Mar, pages 40-51.
    14. Somerville, C Tsuriel, 1999. "Residential Construction Costs and the Supply of New Housing: Endogeneity and Bias in Construction Cost Indexes," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 43-62, January.
    15. Schnare, Ann B. & Struyk, Raymond J., 1976. "Segmentation in urban housing markets," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 146-166, April.
    16. James M. Poterba, 1991. "House Price Dynamics: The Role of Tax Policy," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 22(2), pages 143-204.
    17. Olsen, Edgar O., 1987. "The demand and supply of housing service: A critical survey of the empirical literature," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: E. S. Mills (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 25, pages 989-1022, Elsevier.
    18. Hanushek, Eric A & Quigley, John M, 1980. "What Is the Price Elasticity of Housing Demand?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 62(3), pages 449-454, August.
    19. Henry O. Pollakowski & Michael A. Stegman & William Rohe, 1991. "Rates of Return on Housing of Low‐and Moderate‐Income Owners," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 19(3), pages 417-425, September.
    20. Sweeney, James L, 1974. "Quality, Commodity Hierarchies, and Housing Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 42(1), pages 147-167, January.
    21. Griliches, Zvi, 1986. "Economic data issues," Handbook of Econometrics, in: Z. Griliches† & M. D. Intriligator (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 25, pages 1465-1514, Elsevier.
    22. Dickins, William T, 1990. "Error Components in Grouped Data: Is It Ever Worth Weighting?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 72(2), pages 328-333, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Malpezzi, Stephen & Maclennan, Duncan, 2001. "The Long-Run Price Elasticity of Supply of New Residential Construction in the United States and the United Kingdom," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 278-306, September.
    2. Mayer, Christopher J. & Somerville, C. Tsuriel, 2000. "Residential Construction: Using the Urban Growth Model to Estimate Housing Supply," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 85-109, July.
    3. George Galster, 1996. "William Grigsby and the Analysis of Housing Sub-markets and Filtering," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 33(10), pages 1797-1805, December.
    4. Case, Karl E. & Mayer, Christopher J., 1996. "Housing price dynamics within a metropolitan area," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3-4), pages 387-407, June.
    5. Ball, Michael & Meen, Geoffrey & Nygaard, Christian, 2010. "Housing supply price elasticities revisited: Evidence from international, national, local and company data," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 255-268, December.
    6. Malpezzi, Stephen & Vandell, Kerry, 2002. "Does the low-income housing tax credit increase the supply of housing?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 360-380, December.
    7. Guerrieri, Veronica & Hartley, Daniel & Hurst, Erik, 2013. "Endogenous gentrification and housing price dynamics," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 45-60.
    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. Leah Platt Boustan & Robert A. Margo, 2011. "White Suburbanization and African-American Home Ownership, 1940-1980," NBER Working Papers 16702, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. 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.
    11. Charles Himmelberg & Christopher Mayer & Todd Sinai, 2005. "Assessing High House Prices: Bubbles, Fundamentals and Misperceptions," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 67-92, Fall.
    12. Anthony Owusu-Ansah, 2012. "Modelling the supply of new residential construction for local housing markets and estimation of housing supply price elasticities: The case of Aberdeen, UK," ERES eres2012_097, European Real Estate Society (ERES).
    13. 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.
    14. Monkkonen, Paavo & Wong, Kelvin & Begley, Jaclene, 2012. "Economic restructuring, urban growth, and short-term trading: The spatial dynamics of the Hong Kong housing market, 1992–2008," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 396-406.
    15. Mayer, Christopher J. & Somerville, C. Tsuriel, 2000. "Land use regulation and new construction," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 639-662, December.
    16. Dietz, Robert D. & Haurin, Donald R., 2003. "The social and private micro-level consequences of homeownership," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 401-450, November.
    17. Richard K. Green & Stephen Malpezzi & Stephen K. Mayo, 2005. "Metropolitan-Specific Estimates of the Price Elasticity of Supply of Housing, and Their Sources," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 334-339, May.
    18. Pedro Miguel Moreira Lopes Garcês & Cesaltina Maria Pacheco Pires, 2011. "New housing supply: what do we know and how can we learn more?," CEFAGE-UE Working Papers 2011_18, University of Evora, CEFAGE-UE (Portugal).
    19. Steven C. Bourassa & Donald R. Haurin & Jessica L. Haurin & Martin Hoesli & Jian Sun, 2009. "House Price Changes and Idiosyncratic Risk: The Impact of Property Characteristics," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 37(2), pages 259-278, June.
    20. An, Galina & Becker, Charles & Cheng, Enoch, 2021. "Housing price appreciation and economic integration in a transition economy: Evidence from Kazakhstan," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).

    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:cdl:bphupl:qt67d5x29s. 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: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ibbrkus.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.