Bengt Turner

The future of social housing in Eastern Europe : Reforms in Latvia and Ukraine

This paper explores the impact of housing reforms on public rented housing in Eastern Europe, using Latvia and Ukraine as case studies. The focus on public housing is important, since in both countries municipalities and state institutions are the major social landlords. Rent structures are not sensitive to demand or quality of housing services and allocation decisions rely on bureaucratic processes. The study evaluates changes in ownership, rent and allocation policies in the two countries to determine the extent to which public housing has moved away from a‘command’system to a more market-sensitive model. The limited success of housing reforms, particularly in Ukraine, has critical implications for the financial sustainability of the sector. Drawing on comparative work on social rented housing provision in Western Europe, the paper argues that in transition economies where the sector is large, reforms need to focus on rent policies that ensure cost recovery for services with targeted‘in cash’support for low-income households. By contrast, in countries where the sector is small, reforms need to define its social character and role in the provision of‘in kind’subsidy.

Municipal housing companies in Sweden: On or off the market?

Abstract Sweden has a tradition of a housing policy with large, general subsidies and a public housing sector competing on equal terms with the private rented sector. This policy is now threatened by a depressed economic situation with increased income differences between households, occurring at the same time as government has decided to cut back on general housing subsidies. The new situation has placed municipal housing companies in a complicated situation. They must be more efficient and more businesslike to be able to handle a harsher economic situation. It is also possible that the municipal owner will react by selling part or all of the municipal housing stock. The companies themselves may react by moving rents more towards market levels and by accepting a socially more segmented stock than before. This is in conflict with the traditional social role of municipal housing in Sweden, which is to provide housing for all types of households, irrespective of income and ethnicity. This is more demanding ...

Municipal Housing Companies in Sweden - Social by Default

An important issue in Sweden is the extent to which the public (or municipal) housing sector is a tenure form open to everyone and is on a level playing field with other tenure forms. The issue became more important when the European Union stated that public companies must have a pronounced social role, given their favourable institutional position. This paper reveals that vulnerable families are overrepresented in public housing, compared to other tenure forms, especially in the metropolitan cities and in the larger cities. This pattern is less pronounced in other cities and in rural areas. An index is constructed which measures the share of vulnerable families within a municipal housing company, when the share of vulnerable families within the municipality is controlled for. This index of social responsibility is used as a dependent variable in a regression analysis, using all Swedish municipalities as a database. The analysis reveals that the value of the index increases with a diminishing relative size of the municipal housing company. This effect is particularly strong for families on social benefits and immigrant families from poor countries. We also find evidence that the composition of the housing stock as well as the political regime in a municipality is correlated to the “index of social responsibility”. From an EU point of view, it is obvious that vulnerable families to a large extent are accommodated in the municipal housing sector. The relative size of this sector will in most cases determine the degree of dilution. In this respect, there is no separate social policy in public housing companies in Sweden. Instead, they seem to be social by default.

Housing Allowances: Finding a Balance Between Social Justice and Market Incentives

Safeguarding the affordability of, and thereby access to, housing is a key issue in housing policies across Europe. Housing allowance schemes have become a more important tool in pursuit of this aim in many countries during the past few decades. This themed issue reports on developments and dilemmas concerning housing allowance schemes in five countries.

Housing, Socio-Economic Security and Risks. A Qualitative Comparison of Household Attitudes in Finland and Sweden

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the meaning of housing and the perception of socio-economic security of different forms of tenure in Sweden and Finland. Household interviews reveal that, in stark contrast to Finland, Swedish respondents think that home ownership is not safer than renting. Few ‘absolutists’ can be found in Sweden who believe that one tenure is superior to the other, while home ownership is still favoured in Finland despite a major housing crash in the 1990s. However, some similarities were also present: for example, even though renting has a much more positive image in Sweden than in Finland, home ownership nonetheless was the number one housing preference. There are prima facie reasons to assume that attitudes in the two countries would tend towards convergence given the marked similarities in culture and society due to common history and cultural diffusion (usually from Sweden to Finland) and similar welfare state models producing relatively low income inequality. The paper hypothesizes that differences in attitudes are due to different institutional arrangements in connection with different cultural values attached to housing and tenure.

Housing Cooperatives in Sweden: The Effects of Financial Deregulation

The article focuses on transaction prices for recent movers in cooperative dwellings during the period 1980–1993. Prices increased by 80% in real terms up to 1990, then fell by 35% between 1990 and 1993. A hedonic analysis is used to analyze the impact of changmg macroeconomics and financial deregulation. The financial deregulation, which took place in 1985, seems to have caused increased loan-to-value ratios on the cooperative housing market. Using 1983 as a point of reference, a Tobit analysis reveals that the average LTV ratio in 1990 was 290% higher that year. After 1990 the LTV ratio fell by 45% due to credit constraints.

Countryside abandoned? Suburbanization and mobility in Sweden

Regional differences have been increasing in Sweden. Over the last five to ten years, several municipalities have lost well over 1 per cent per annum of their population through a net outmigration to metropolitan regions and university cities. Losses of inhabitants normally have a negative effect on the housing market. Prices of owner-occupied dwellings decrease and vacancies occur in the rented sector. This paper aims to analyse the differences between depopulating municipalities. In some cases a net loss in population is compatible with a net migration of elderly households and middle-aged families – even when there is a massive outmigration of young people. A regression model shows that municipalities in a coastal location, with good living conditions and a strong housing market, also have a net inmigration of middle-aged or elderly households. The analysis also shows that a net outmigration is not always in conflict with a dynamic housing market. If there is a reasonably large inmigration of middle-aged or elderly households, the housing market conditions can still be favourable.

Housing finance in the Nordic countries

Abstract The aim of this article is to describe and compare the housing finance systems in the Nordic countries from a housing policy perspective. The starting point is the obvious similarity between the countries in economic, cultural, geographical and historical respects. While a housing consumption goal is important to all these countries and in spite of their similarities, the countries have chosen quite different housing finance systems. It is suggested that one explanation of these differences is different methods of targeting or selectivity. Nevertheless, some countries do have a more selective policy than others. One explanation may be differences in the housing stock. It is observed that countries with a high share of selective subsidies do not have a public, non‐profit housing sector. The paper ends with a discussion of the need for more research in this important area.

Windfall Gains on the Swedish Housing Market: The Effects of Queueing for a Cooperative Dwelling

The cooperative housing sector in Sweden consists of one market for new dwellings where the downpayment and rent is fixed, and where the dwellings are allocated through a queue, and one market for used dwellings, where all units are bought and sold freely with a transaction price determined by market conditions. As the transaction price usually exceeds the down-payment, substantial windfall gains accrue to those achieving a dwelling through the queue. Regression analysis reveals that this ratio is on average nearly three. The ratio varies, however, depending on the local housing market situation. It is argued that the ratio is a better indication on the demand situation in the local housing market than is provided through information on the length of the queue at the municipal exchequer.A logit analysis is used to find out which households receive these windfall gains. It is shown that the probability of acquiring a dwelling through the queue, and thus capturing the windfall gain, is positively correlated with income and family size. The conclusion is that the cooperative queues do not have a redistributive effect on wealth in society, quite opposite the housing policy intention upon which the Swedish cooperative movement was founded. Copyright American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.

Land Use Regulation: Transferring Lessons from Developed Economies

In the early days of the World Bank’s involvement in urban land issues, the Bank held a symposium to assist its staff in urban project and design activities for developing countries. The symposium set out the major issues, identified the analytical approach, and suggested priorities and some ways forward. The papers from the symposium were developed into a text, Urban Land Policy: Issues and Opportunities(Dunkerley & Whitehead, 1983), that put the questions in a more transparent framework of economic analysis with the aim of bringing them into broader academic and policy discussion.