The rent gap theory of gentrification has inspired a substantial amount of critical attention as well as several empirical studies. None of these studies addresses a fundamental problem with the rent gap hypothesis—namely, its dependence on a distinction between actual and potential land...

The analysis reported in this article incorporates direct measures of borrowing constraints into an otherwise standard model of the home-ownership decision in Australia. Borrowing constraints take into account mortgage underwriting criteria, household incomes and wealth, and the household's...

Typical measures of the affordability of home-ownership are based on aggregate data that ignore the distribution of incomes and wealth and the range of house prices. An analysis of household survey data provides a means for overcoming those problems; however, numerous conceptual and...

The US President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform has recommended changes to income tax concessions for homeowners. Consistent with the opinions of many economists, the tax reform panel concluded that the existing tax concessions are not particularly effective. The housing and mortgage...

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...

With an annual growth rate of 0.62 per cent since 1980, Taiwan's homeownership rate reached 88 per cent in 2007. This study explores possible causes of Taiwan's high homeownership rates. The institutional and economic context for tenure choice in Taiwan is reviewed, paying particular attention...

In this paper, we scrutinise Oswald's evidence that home-ownership and unemployment are correlated across the US states. In order to abstract from state fixed-effects in levels, we analyse the cross-sectional variation in changes in home-ownership and unemployment rates between 1970 and 1990....

Periodic sharp sustained increases and then reversals in asset prices lead many to posit irrational price 'bubbles'. The general case for bubbles is that asset prices simply move too much given the future cash flows the assets are reasonably likely to produce. A corollary for property is that...