Andreja Cirman

Housing Conditions and Their Structural Determinants

Housing conditions vary widely across the EU and the fact that new member-states are lagging behind in this regard has even come onto the European policy agenda. This article examines housing conditions as an outcome of complex social developments and highlights specific reasons why housing conditions vary so much within the EU. Thus the specific impact is observed of factors which have been identified in the literature as characterising distinctive housing models: the eastern European housing model, the southern European housing model and the distinction between cost-renting and homeowning countries. Further, the impact of these factors, along with general socioeconomic development, is empirically assessed by a linear regression model based on the EQLS 2003 dataset. The results clearly support the thesis of economic development playing a decisive role, with it being the biggest single factor explaining variations in housing conditions across the EU, followed by the significant influence of policy choice and the incidence of family support.

Decisions to Renovate: Identifying Key Determinants in Central and Eastern European Post-socialist Countries

Housing renovation is a topical issue in CEE countries facing the need to tackle their troubled post-war housing estates and improve their energy efficiency. In this paper the renovation decisions of households living in multidwelling buildings are modelled to identify the key determinants of such decisions and to gain a better insight into the reasons for the insufficient extent of renovation in CEE. Considering general factors as well as CEE specific factors, and specifically adding variables of social capital, renovation decision-making is modelled by applying a discrete choice framework of analysis. The results clearly show that, next to the physical characteristics of the stock, such as its age, an important role in the renovation process is played by residents and particularly their relations in terms of social capital. The results thus identify some of the key missing pre-conditions for renovating multidwelling buildings across CEE.

Housing restitution policies among post-socialist countries: explaining divergence

The purpose of this paper is to explain why post-socialist countries adopted different housing restitution strategies after the change of regimes across the region. Restitution refers here to the process of returning property or compensating for property expropriated by the communist regime to its previous owners or their descendants. This paper provides a brief overview, assessment and categorisation of housing property restitution policies using a sample of 14 post-socialist countries, but it primarily aims to contribute to the general understanding of the evolution of post-socialist housing systems. The authors demonstrate that the decision of governments whether or not to adopt a policy of mass give-away privatisation of public housing probably had the biggest impact on which property restitution strategy, if any, was applied.

Decomposition analysis of the waste generation and management in 30 European countries

An often suggested method for waste prevention is substitution of currently-used materials with materials which are less bulky, contain less hazardous components or are easier to recycle. For policy makers it is important to have tools available that provide information on the impact of this substitution on the changes in total amounts of waste generated and managed. The purpose of this paper is to see how much changes in the mix of 15 waste streams generated in eight economic sectors from 30 European countries have influenced the amounts of waste generated and managed in the period 2004–2012. In order to determine these impacts, two variations of the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) analysis model were developed and applied. The results show that the changes in the mix of waste streams in most cases did not have a considerable influence on the changes in the amounts of generated waste. In the analyses of waste sent for landfill, incineration without energy recovery, incineration with energy recovery and recovery other than energy recovery, the results also show that the changes in the mix of waste streams in most cases did not have the expected/desired influence on the changes in the amounts of managed waste. This paper provides an example on the possibilities of applying the LMDI analysis as a tool for quantifying the potential of effects which implemented or planned measures could have on the changes in waste management systems.

Property Restitution After 1990

Property restitution is the process in which property expropriated by communist regime was returned to the previous owners or their descendants. This chapter seeks to explain the differences between the housing restitution strategies adopted by post-socialist countries, to present in-depth case studies in four countries, and to discuss the impact of property restitution on the development of the private rental sector in these countries. Explanations for differences between approaches to housing property restitution included fiscal considerations, diverse historical roots, and diverse public housing privatisation strategies. There also seems to be a link between the scale of housing property restitution and its form, and the recent size of the private rental sector and the level of its professionalisation.

Switching personal income tax and social security contributions between Slovenia and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract This article examines policy switching between Slovenia and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBH). The idea behind it is that national microsimulation models can be used to apply Slovenian parameters to the FBH data, as established by the Personal Income Tax (PIT) Act and Social Security Contributions (SSC) Act. Accordingly, we introduce FBH parameters to Slovenian data. Along these lines, we investigate the effects on public finance systems with respect to revenues from PIT and SSC, average after-tax income, tax progressivity, income inequality, and the redistributive effect in each of these two countries, using the other country’s PIT and SSC solutions. This is the first fiscal comparison of Slovenia and the FBH, as well as the first policy switching analysis of the two countries.