IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ese/emodwp/em12-19.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Recent changes in housing policies and their distributional impact across Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Figari, Francesco
  • Hollan, Katarina
  • Matsaganis, Manos
  • Zolyomi, Eszter

Abstract

This paper aims to explore how housing allowances and mortgage interest tax relief have evolved in recent years, against the background of falling disposable incomes and rising housing costs. The analysis focuses on seven EU countries (Greece, Italy, Austria, Hungary, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK), covering a range of housing market developments and housing policy responses. The first part of the paper provides an overview of housing market trends over the period following the financial crisis and examines recent changes in housing policies in the countries concerned. The next part discusses the main features of two specific housing policy instruments, housing allowance and mortgage interest tax relief, also exploring recent changes there and the motives behind these. The last part estimates the distributional impact of housing allowances and mortgage tax relief in 2016 as compared with 2007 using the European tax-benefit model EUROMOD. The paper concludes with a discussion of the results and of the policy implications.

Suggested Citation

  • Figari, Francesco & Hollan, Katarina & Matsaganis, Manos & Zolyomi, Eszter, 2019. "Recent changes in housing policies and their distributional impact across Europe," EUROMOD Working Papers EM12/19, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:ese:emodwp:em12-19
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/files/working-papers/euromod/em12-19.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Angelica Salvi del Pero & Willem Adema & Valeria Ferraro & Valérie Frey, 2016. "Policies to promote access to good-quality affordable housing in OECD countries," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 176, OECD Publishing.
    2. Chen, Jie, 2006. "The Dynamics of Housing Allowance Claims in Sweden: A discrete-time hazard analysis," Working Paper Series 2006:1, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    3. Gibbons, Stephen & Manning, Alan, 2006. "The incidence of UK housing benefit: Evidence from the 1990s reforms," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(4-5), pages 799-822, May.
    4. Holly Sutherland & Francesco Figari, 2013. "EUROMOD: the European Union tax-benefit microsimulation model," International Journal of Microsimulation, International Microsimulation Association, vol. 1(6), pages 4-26.
    5. Aki Kangasharju, 2010. "Housing Allowance and the Rent of Low‐income Households," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 112(3), pages 595-617, September.
    6. Tuukka Saarimaa, 2010. "Tax Incentives and Demand for Mortgage Debt: Evidence from the Finnish 1993 Tax Reform," International Journal of Housing Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(1), pages 19-40.
    7. Matsaganis, Manos & Flevotomou, Maria, 2007. "The impact of mortgage interest tax relief in the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Italy and Greece," EUROMOD Working Papers EM2/07, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    8. Martin Schneider & Karin Wagner, 2016. "Housing markets in Austria, Germany and Switzerland," Chapters from NBP Conference Publications, in: Hanna Augustyniak & Jacek Łaszek & Krzysztof Olszewski & Joanna Waszczuk (ed.), Papers presented during the Narodowy Bank Polski Workshop: Recent trends in the real estate market and its analysis - 2015 edition, chapter 6, pages v1, 143-1, Narodowy Bank Polski.
    9. Jappelli, Tullio & Pistaferri, Luigi, 2007. "Do people respond to tax incentives? An analysis of the Italian reform of the deductibility of home mortgage interests," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 247-271, February.
    10. Josef Baumgartner, 2013. "Die Mietpreisentwicklung in Österreich. Eine deskriptive Analyse für die Jahre 2005 bis 2012," WIFO Monatsberichte (monthly reports), WIFO, vol. 86(7), pages 559-577, July.
    11. Mark Stephens, 2005. "An Assessment of the British Housing Benefit System," European Journal of Housing Policy, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 5(2), pages 111-129.
    12. Susin, Scott, 2002. "Rent vouchers and the price of low-income housing," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 109-152, January.
    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. Lim, SeHee & Kim, HeeJoo, 2020. "Housing experiences of families with children living in poor and overcrowded housing in Korea," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).

    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. Hyslop, Dean R. & Rea, David, 2019. "Do housing allowances increase rents? Evidence from a discrete policy change," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    2. Gibbons, Stephen & Sanchez-Vidal, Maria & Silva, Olmo, 2020. "The bedroom tax," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    3. C. Grislain-Letrémy & C. Trevien, 2014. "The Impact of Housing Subsidies on the Rental Sector: the French Example," Documents de Travail de l'Insee - INSEE Working Papers g2014-08, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques.
    4. Essi Eerola & Teemu Lyytikäinen, 2021. "Housing Allowance and Rents: Evidence from a Stepwise Subsidy Scheme," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 123(1), pages 84-109, January.
    5. Eerola, Essi & Lyytikäinen, Teemu & Saarimaa, Tuukka & Vanhapelto, Tuuli, 2022. "The Incidence of Housing Allowances: Quasi-Experimental Evidence," Working Papers 149, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    6. Doron Sayag & Noam Zussman, 2015. "The Distribution of Rental Assistance Between Tenants and Landlords:The Case of Students in Central Jerusalem," Bank of Israel Working Papers 2015.01, Bank of Israel.
    7. Matti Viren, 2013. "Is the housing allowance shifted to rental prices?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 1497-1518, June.
    8. Braakmann, Nils & McDonald, Stephen, 2020. "Housing subsidies and property prices: Evidence from England," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    9. Sayag, Doron & Zussman, Noam, 2020. "Who benefits from rental assistance? Evidence from a natural experiment," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    10. Corentin Trevien, 2016. "Four essays in empirical urban economics : evaluation of French regional policies [Quatre essais en économie urbaine empirique : évaluation de politiques d'aménagement du territoire]," SciencePo Working papers Main tel-03498772, HAL.
    11. Corentin Trevien, 2016. "Four essays in empirical urban economics : evaluation of French regional policies [Quatre essais en économie urbaine empirique : évaluation de politiques d'aménagement du territoire]," SciencePo Working papers tel-03498772, HAL.
    12. Johannes Abeler & Felix Marklein, 2017. "Fungibility, Labels, and Consumption," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 99-127.
    13. Virén, Matti, 2011. "Does housing allowance feed through into rental prices?," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 11/2011, Bank of Finland.
    14. Wu, Yuzhe & Luo, Jiaojiao & Peng, Yi, 2020. "An optimization-based framework for housing subsidy policy in China: Theory and practice of housing vouchers," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    15. Desai, Mihir & Dharmapala, Dhammika & Singhal, Monica, 2008. "Investable Tax Credits: The Case of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit," Working Paper Series rwp08-035, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    16. Van Ommeren, Jos & Koopman, Marnix, 2011. "Public housing and the value of apartment quality to households," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 207-213, May.
    17. Gibbons, Stephen & Manning, Alan, 2006. "The incidence of UK housing benefit: Evidence from the 1990s reforms," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(4-5), pages 799-822, May.
    18. Minfede Koe Raoul, 2018. "Analysis of the efficiency of public policy on the supply of social housing in a poor country," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(4), pages 2184-2193.
    19. Huang, Donna & Ong, Rachel & Pawson, Hal & Singh, Ranjodh & Martin, Chris, 2020. "Demand-side assistance in Australia’s rental housing market: exploring reform options," SocArXiv w75yx, Center for Open Science.
    20. Raya, Josep Maria & Torres-Pruñonosa, Jose, 2022. "The importance of administrative data in the evaluation of the incidence of social housing allowance programmes," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ese:emodwp:em12-19. 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: Jonathan Nears (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rcessuk.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.