The "affordability" of housing is one of the most prominent domestic public policy issues of the day, and for good reason. The housing that people are in is an important determinant of their well-being, and it is something on which people - especially those on lower incomes - typically spend a...

Eine nachhaltige Wohnungsbaufinanzierung für untere Einkommensgruppen zu realisieren, ist für eine wachsende Anzahl von Ländern weltweit ein fast unerreichbares Ziel und stellt deshalb eine große Herausforderung dar. Scheitern diesbezügliche staatliche Programme, so kann das verheerende...

This study tests whether mobility counseling and cash incentives will affect a Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) recipient's move to an opportunity area. Opportunity areas are defined as tracks rated 6-10 on a HUD-created index—factoring in poverty, housing stability, job and transit access, school...

Increasing supply is frequently proposed as a solution to rising housing costs. However, there is little evidence on how new market-rate construction—which is typically expensive—affects the market for lower quality housing in the short run. I begin by using address history data to identify...

The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (“LIHTC”) is the nation’s largest program to produce and preserve subsidized housing. To ensure that LIHTC avoids harmfully concentrating poverty, entrenching segregation, or inefficiently deploying resources, federal law requires that states prioritize...

The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program has been a significant source of new multifamily housing for a quarter century, producing more than 2 million units of affordable rental housing since 1987. In recent years, LIHTCs have provided funding for approximately one-third of all new...

I estimate the credit supply effect of the Underserved Areas Goal (UAG), which establishes GSE purchase goals for mortgages to lower-income and minority neighborhoods. Taking advantage of discontinuous census tract eligibility rules and abrupt changes in tract eligibility, I find some evidence...

We examine long-term neighborhood effects on low-income families using data from the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) randomized housing-mobility experiment, which offered some public-housing families but not others the chance to move to less-disadvantaged neighborhoods. We show that 10-15 years...

This paper compares the rent savings accrued by recipient households over the life-cycle of LIHTC projects to their allocated tax credits. A simple two-stage empirical procedure is developed and implemented for a selected medium sized MSA. Using hedonic pricing parameters estimated in the first...

Traditional rationales for low-income housing assistance imply that a housing program is not successful unless it induces recipients to occupy better housing than they would choose if given equally costly cash grants. The general assumptions of economic theory do not imply that current housing...