Financial restructuring and housing markets in Finland

In Western, industrialised countries, houses are typically expensive in relation to average incomes so that their production and exchange are facilitated by extensive systems of finance as well as being a major source of profit for the suppliers of finance. Also typically, national financial systems have been, and continue to be, subject to fundamental changes. These can be expected to lead to a changed relationship between housing and financial markets, which will lead to further changes in both. In this paper, against a background of theoretical assessments of the consequences, recent and ongoing changes affecting financial markets in Finland are explored. It considers how these might affect Finland's home ownership market through possible developments in the availability of credit, subsidies and prices.     

US housing policies for the 1980s

Conference on Housing Policies in the Eighties: Choices and Outcomes, organized jointly by the Urban Affairs Programme of the College of Architecture and Urban Studies, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and the Institute for Policy Studies, Washington, DC, Alexandria, Virginia, USA, 17–18 May 1985     

House prices and regional labor markets

This paper examines some potentially significant interactions between local housing and labor markets. We use an error correction model with equations explaining the average manufacturing wage, the unemployment rate, the labor force and the average house price in an urban area. Estimates are reported for the Hartford, Houston, Fort Lauderdale and Milwaukee areas using quarterly data for the 1980s. We find some evidence that unemployment and labor force changes affect house prices and that house prices have a significant effect on the size of the labor force. Received: September 1995 / Accepted: January 1996     

Performance of US contractors in foreign markets

The international construction market shrank considerably in the period 1980–88. US contractors' performance in this period was less than satisfactory. This paper first discusses briefly the principal causes for this decline in international construction (the reduction in oil prices, an increase in Third World countries' external debts, local companies becoming more competitive, and governments' barriers to foreign contractors). It then uses published statistical data to identify the common features of US construction companies that undertake work overseas. Finally, it attempts to explain the factors such as financing, taxing, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and foreign competition that may have affected US competitiveness abroad.     

US housing problems,politics and policies in the 1990s

Housing policy in the US reflects its general approach to economic and social problems. Among all western democracies, the US relies most on private market forces to provide housing for its population. American housing policy emphasises bolstering market forces and minimising assistance for the poor. Despite its significant achievements (for example, two out of every three American households now owns its dwelling), the US is now facing a severe housing crisis, not only for the poor, but for a sizeable portion of the troubled middle class. To guarantee every American an opportunity to live in decent, safe and affordable housing, the US has to change national priorities and spend more on housing. But it also must spend better: reduce development costs, eliminate bureaucratic waste, and target assistance more efficiently. Following a review of past and current housing programmes, we outline a progressive housing policy agenda and then discuss the political obstacles and opportunities that confront such an ambitious plan.     

Spatial spillovers in US wholesale gasoline markets

This paper analyses how oil industry‐related activities in neighbouring gasoline markets affect local markets. Our contribution consists of applying spatial econometric models to better understand pricing behaviour in US gasoline markets and the spatial phenomena unique to this particular industry. We find that neighbouring state‐level gasoline price variation explains a large portion of the variation of in‐state (or local) gasoline prices. Consistent with intuition, the empirical results imply that wholesale gasoline prices are positively affected by state and federal‐level gasoline content regulations. Further, our results suggest that changes in state‐level wholesale gasoline prices respond to both in‐state and neighbouring‐state inventory levels.     

Repayment risk and European home owners: the interplay of housing markets,labour markets,financial markets and social security systems

Across Europe mass home ownership has been based on financial arrangements that have provided individual buyers with loans that can be repaid over long periods of time. These arrangements vary in their detail, and their integrity is subject to the risk of default. This paper focuses on the probability of households in different European countries experiencing repayment difficulties, and seeks to identify some of the macro factors that lead to this happening. It shows that national levels of repayment risk can be attributed to the nature of labour markets, social security systems, housing markets and financial markets.     

The global financial crisis and the Australian and New Zealand housing markets

The evolution of the US sub-prime mortgage meltdown into a global financial crisis clearly demonstrates the increasingly integrated nature of mortgage and capital markets. However, notwithstanding the global scale and severity of the recent financial crisis, the effects of the credit crunch were mediated by nationally constituted housing markets, the activities of local financial institutions and national housing policies. Adopting an institutional perspective this paper critically examines the manner in which the financial crisis impacted upon the Australian and New Zealand housing markets. These countries had actively participated in the liberalisation of mortgage markets and experienced significant house price inflation post-2000 but, in contrast to the USA and some European experiences, they escaped a severe housing downturn. It is argued that a combination of pre-existing institutional practices, market conditions and government policies acted to shelter these markets and created the potential conditions for a new housing boom. While avoiding a deep housing slump, both Australia and New Zealand have to address the on-going macroeconomic implications of a system predicated on housing inflation and capital gains.     

The spatial spillover effect of local fiscal expenditure in regional housing market: the case of Taiwan

Journal of Housing and the Built Environment - To effectively distribute resources and formulate policies, governments and enterprises usually need to obtain accurate geographical information about...     

Quantity adjustments in the regional labour markets of EU candidate countries

Abstract.  The article comprises an analysis of the adjustment of regional labour markets of former (and present) EU candidate countries to asymmetric shocks. As in EU member states, a substantial part of the adjustment to changes in employment in candidate countries is carried by participation decisions, and migration plays a small role. Candidate countries, however, have experienced larger region-specific shocks to labour demand than member states, and these shocks lead to higher long-run changes in employment. Furthermore, adjustment mechanisms partly explain high regional unemployment. High unemployment regions exhibit a lower capability to absorb region-specific shocks through mechanisms other than higher unemployment.     

Swedish welfare state and housing markets: under economic and political pressure

Economic and financial crises are often connected to crises in the housing market. Some housing systems are, however, more sensitive than others. Traditionally, Sweden’s system aimed to protect households from such volatility, but changes in the welfare state model and increased mortgage indebtedness suggest that Sweden’s housing market might have become more exposed to macro pressures. The starting point for this article is an understanding of the Swedish welfare state model in which housing was traditionally a core value and where the link between income and housing outcome has been weakened. Deregulation and liberalization have fundamentally changed the special features on the Swedish housing market. In particular, the rental sector is decreasing in favor of increased ownership and greater speculation. In this article, we aim to give a picture of the grand restructuring of the Swedish housing sector including its implications for the link between income poverty and housing poverty and an understanding of the contradictory reaction of the welfare state to the global financial crisis (GFC). Our results show that affordability is a problem and that the proportion of households at risk of poverty has been increasing when taking housing costs into consideration. However, a combination of the lessons learned in the 1990s crisis and resultant increases in regulation together with a stronger and more immediate recovery than might have been expected meant that Sweden and its housing system came out of the GFC fundamentally intact. However, there must be concerns that future crises will not be so readily addressed.     

French housing markets after the subprime crisis: from exuberance to resilience

The main topic addressed in this paper is the special attributes of the French system as regards both the house price upsurge in the precrisis decade and the resilience of the housing system since 2007. Why was the housing market so buoyant before 2007, and why did it stabilize so rapidly after 2008? Apart from the nature of the credit system, which is of course of great importance—especially with respect to resilience—answering this question leads to questions concerning recent trends in tenure, urban structures, income distribution and housing policies. A number of similarities can be observed with Nordic countries, especially with Sweden, which can explain why those countries were exuberant without generating the kind of fragility observed in Anglo-Saxon, southern or eastern European countries.     

Cross-city spillovers in Chinese housing markets: From a city network perspective

Cross-city spillovers among housing markets are usually modelled by the classical spatial autoregressive models, which usually suffer from identification problems in practice. This paper investigates the cross-city house price spillovers arising from city network externalities wherein a city's connections with other cities in the urban network create the external house price premium through productivity and amenity gains. Using a cross-sectional data set for an urban system in eastern China, we present significant evidence for positive network spillovers by the application of spatial lag of X model and spatial Durbin error model. Besides, common shocks are also proved to be responsible for cross-city dependence of house prices.     

Protecting housing and mortgage markets in times of crisis: a view from Australia

Australia emerged relatively unscathed by the foreclosure crisis in the US in 2007 and the subsequent global finance crisis (GFC) and, at least to date, appears to be well placed to face the sovereign debt crisis that has threatened and continues to threaten stability in a number of European countries. In part, its survival period can be attributed to a number of key interventions in its mortgage and housing markets prior to, and during, the GFC. Its apparent survival beyond 2010 and through subsequent crises has been built on these foundations. This paper provides an overview of the Australian housing finance system in order to understand some of the context within which these key interventions were undertaken. It outlines relevant responses to the crises and assesses the extent to which these have been successful in terms of their impact on Australia’s housing and mortgage markets. It argues that some of the interventions have been good and some bad but that even the good interventions reflect missed opportunities likely to affect Australia’s housing and mortgage markets into the future. It concludes by pointing to the lessons that might be learned from its experience to date.