The economic system of competitive capitalism has proven to be both resilient and flexible over time and has contributed to the economic welfare of citizens in liberal and coordinated market economies in diverse regions and countries. At the same time, over the entire post-World War II period, there has been a notable endemic shortage of affordable housing in many advanced economies.
This book points at both the causes and the consequences of this circumstance and provides an integrated economic and legal view of how housing production is dependent on housing finance, which, in turn, means that legal conditions and the sovereign state play an active role. Further, the book contributes to the literature from two otherwise partially separated disciplines-housing and urban development studies on the one hand and the institutional centrality of the finance industry in the contemporary economic system on the other. The author asserts that although somewhat assimilated due to the ambitions of policy makers to optimize social and economic welfare for their constituencies, the combining of these two realms of expertise generates many favorable outcomes, but also some costs derived from finance industry instabilities. The book connects theoretical perspectives and provides an empirical explanation for how affordable housing is generated in an actual real world economy context.
The book will be relevant to the work of a number of academic disciplines including economics, government studies, housing policy and urban planning, social geography and law and society.
Author(s): Alexander Styhre
Series: Routledge Advances in Regional Economics, Science and Policy
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 183
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Affordable housing for all and other political ambitions
The question concerning affordable housing
A house as an institutional fact: housing as financial asset
Housing ownership as institutional fact and financial asset
Housing policy: to reconcile the housing as utility and financial asset perspectives
Outline of the volume
Summary and conclusion
Notes
Part I: Institutional conditions
Chapter 1: Affordable housing policies
Introduction
Elementary components of housing policy
Affordable housing as social provision and welfare device
Housing as communitarian asset
Housing supply and policy making: affordable housing production in nested policy milieus
Housing policy and the generation of housing equity inequality: the institutional perspective
The socio-economic and cultural context of housing policy
Ethnical and racial factors
Market practices in the shadow of housing market policy
Households as housing markets speculators
The supply side view: legal reforms and managerial practices
Technological changes and new market conditions as the drivers of the decline of affordable housing
The challenge to provide legal protection of low-income households’ housing welfare
Legal and regulatory reform and corporate activities derived therefrom in housing markets
The corporate restructuring in European and Australian housing markets
Summary and conclusion
Notes
Chapter 2: The credit formation process and the role of housing production and financing
Introduction
Prolegomena: finance capital coded in legal contracts
Housing as investment asset: the long-term perspective
The macroeconomic perspective: the household-lending channel and the demand for safe assets
Safe asset and the role of mortgage loans as collateral
Government sponsored enterprises, US Treasury bond supply, and the global savings surplus
Home mortgage lending in the macroeconomic perspective
Fiscal policy and taxation effects on housing wealth
Mortgage financing in a socio-economic context
The management of housing assets in the financialized economy: economic and social welfare implications
Biased, discriminatory, and excluding mortgage lending practices: equality and welfare implications
The question regarding whether home ownership promotes social welfare: should the conventional wisdom be questioned?
Summary and conclusion
Notes
Part II: Empirical cases
Chapter 3: The institutional setting and the design and methodology of the study
Introduction
The Swedish society and economy and their institutional changes over time
The Swedish housing market: a mixed housing market with privately owned and rented housing units
Free markets or regulated housing supply?
Study methodology
Design of the study
Data collection
Data analysis
Summary and conclusion
Note
Chapter 4: Ambiguous policy objectives and their consequences: Urban development project goals, their legitimacy, and the role of professional ignorance
Introduction
The municipality-owned real estate company model: the question of legitimacy
The role of the municipality real estate companies in the housing market
The legitimacy of the municipality-owned real estate company model
The unintended consequences of the municipality-owned real estate company model
The limits of the legitimacy of municipality-owned real estate company initiatives
The social production of professional ignorance: acting under uncertainty and ambiguities
To cope with incomplete or concealed performance metrics: a consumer-lending industry example
The value of professional ignorance in urban development projects
How to achieve political goals when the data is concealed to decision makers
The increase of community housing supply in the low end of the housing market
The value of professional ignorance in policy implementation
Summary and conclusion
Chapter 5: Housing welfare and the value of amenities
Introduction
The role of valuation in pricing
Urban renewal programs, housing prices, and the role of amenities
The valuation and pricing of amenities
The valuation of housing in low-amenity and low purchasing power city districts
Urban development in low-net worth city districts
Investing in amenities
The value of amenities: higher real estate stock valuation, increased risk-taking among residents, and the virtuous spiral
Creating better amenities to improve housing welfare
Summary and conclusion
Chapter 6: What needs to be done?: The institutional challenge to provide affordable housing
Introduction
Learnings made from the affordable housing policy implementation activities
Theorizing the production of hybrid suburban space: The case of urban development projects in low-end housing markets
The importance of organizational rights in affordable housing policy implementation
The supply-side view: the role of municipality-controlled real estate companies
The demand-size view: the need for a new political organization of tenants
Contributions to housing policy
Contributions to management studies and related social science disciplines
Summary and conclusion
Bibliography
Index
