Increased urbanisation poses serious challenges to adequate housing in the cities of the Global South. Many have focused on the issues of access to serviced land, housing finance, and public subsidy in augmenting the supply of low-income affordable housing while ignoring the criticality of...

Using thirty years of municipal elections in France, we show that election results affect the share of immigrants across municipalities. In municipalities where a left- instead of right-wing mayor has been elected, the share of immigrants in the population grows faster by 1.5 p.p. within six...

This paper investigates the impacts of neighborhoods on the economic outcomes of adults. We exploit one of the world's largest housing lottery programs and administrative data linking lottery registration, formal employment, and access to social programs in Brazil. Receiving a house has positive...

This paper investigates the impacts of neighborhoods on the economic outcomes of adults. We exploit one of the world's largest housing lottery programs and administrative data linking lottery registration, formal employment, and access to social programs in Brazil. Receiving a house has positive...

The homeownership rate in Germany is one of the lowest among advanced economies. To better understand this fact, we analyze the role of three specific policies which discourage homeownership in Germany: an extensive social housing sector with broad eligibility criteria, high transfer taxes when...

In this paper we describe the main features of the French social housing system as viewed from abroad, and place it within the context of systems in other major developed countries, particularly in Europe. At 17% of the total stock the social sector in France is of similar scale to many other...

We use a quantitative spatial equilibrium model to evaluate the distributional and welfare impacts of a recent temporary rent control policy in Berlin, Germany. We calibrate the model to key features of Berlin’s housing market, in particular the recent gentrification of inner city locations....

We use a quantitative spatial equilibrium model to evaluate the distributional and welfare impacts of a recent temporary rent control policy in Berlin, Germany. We calibrate the model to key features of Berlin’s housing market, in particular the recent gentrification of inner city locations....

The state programs for low income housing in Brazil started in the 1930s, and most recently the well-advertised program "My House, My Life" by the Federal government had on its goals to improve the quality of life of poor people, to reduce the housing deficit and to foster the economy. The...

A fundamental question in economics is whether happiness increases pari passu with improvements in material conditions or whether humans grow accustomed to better conditions over time. We rely on a large-scale experiment to examine what kind of impact the provision of housing to extremely poor...