The Unassuming Economist

On cross-country:

• Our cities house-price index suggests the property market is slowing – Economist
• Global House Price Index – Economist
• Planning rules are driving the global housing crisis – Financial Times
• Opinion today: Demented by the housing crisis: Simply comparing the number of households to dwellings gives a foolishly misleading idea – Financial Times

On the US:

• Our Shrinking Supply of Low-Cost Rental Units – Joint Center for Housing Studies
• Who Owns a Home in America, in 12 Charts – Citylab
• Does Homeownership Influence Political Behavior? Evidence from Administrative Data – Stanford University
• The effects of housing supply restrictions on partisan geography – Political Geography
• Redfin doubling down on direct home buying, plans expansion of Redfin Now – HousingWire
• Housing market has hit a ‘significant slowdown’ in recent weeks, Redfin CEO says – MarketWatch
• New housing construction doesn’t fuel SF evictions, claims report – Curbed
• Hosing Homebuyers: Why Cities Should Not Pay For Water and Wastewater Infrastructure with Development Charges – D. Howe Institute
• Seattle’s Socialist City Council Member Thinks Housing Is a Human Right—Unless it Comes at the Expense of Music Venues – Reason
• Highest Share of Homeowners Likely to Move in Q3 2018 in Chicago, DC, Orlando, Tampa, Atlanta – ATTOM

On other countries:

• [China] China’s new home price growth hits two-year high as small cities boom – Reuters
• [Germany] Creating Permanent Housing Affordability: Lessons From German Cooperative Housing Models – Urban Institute
• [New Zealand] New Zealand bans sales of homes to foreigners – BBC
• [Singapore] Singapore Home Prices Won’t Pop Without More Migrants – Bloomberg

Photo by Aliis Sinisalu

A new VOX post “uses new ‘distributional national accounts’ data to show that the Middle East is in fact the most unequal region in the world, with both enormous inequality between countries and large inequality within countries. The results emphasise the need to develop mechanisms of regional redistribution and to increase transparency on income and wealth data.”

“According to our benchmark estimates, the share of total income accruing to the top 10% of income earners is about 64% in the Middle East, which compares with 37% in Western Europe, 47% in the US, 55% in Brazil, and 62% in South Africa – the two latter countries being often characterised as the most unequal in the world (see Figure 1).”

Continue reading here.

From the EIU report:

“The results of the Global Liveability Index 2018 reveal that Vienna has displaced Melbourne as the world’s most liveable city. This ends a record seven consecutive years at the head of the survey for the Australian city.

This year’s Index also finds an improvement in the scores of the top-ranked cities, reflecting improvements in safety and stability across most regions. Other key findings include:

• Canadian cities outperform cities in the United States, with three Canadian cities making this year’s top ten
• Manchester, Paris and Copenhagen have seen the biggest ranking improvements among western European cities over the past year
• Osaka and Tokyo have climbed up the ranking to enter to top 10 for the first time”

From a new working paper by Justin Caron and Thibault Fally:

“This paper investigates the role of income-driven differences in consumption patterns in explaining and projecting energy demand and CO2 emissions. We develop and estimate a general-equilibrium model with non-homothetic preferences across a large set of countries and sectors, and trace embodied energy consumption through intermediate use and trade linkages. Consumption of energy goods is less than proportional to income in rich countries, and more income-elastic in low-income countries. While income effects are weaker for embodied energy, we nd a signicant negative relationship between income elasticity and CO2 intensity across all goods. These income-driven differences in consumption choices can partially explain the observed inverted-U relationship between income and emissions across countries, the so-called environmental Kuznet curve. Relative to standard models with homothetic preferences, simulations suggest that income growth leads to lower emissions in high-income countries and higher emissions in some low-income countries, with only modest reductions in world emissions on aggregate.”

On cross-country:

• Housing Policy and the Changing Tenure Mix – National Institute of Economic Review
• A Tale of Two Countries: Comparing the US and Chinese Housing Markets – The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics

On the US:

• Both renters and homeowners could benefit from better housing policy – Brookings
• Will The Mortgage Market Impact The Midterm Elections? – Forbes
• Pricey Housing Markets in West Are Cooling Off Most Quickly – Wall Street Journal
• America’s Housing Crisis Is Forcing More People To Live In Vehicles – Huffington Post

On other countries:

• [Canada] Housing market dynamics and macroprudential policies – Bank of Canada
• [India] Too slow for the urban march: Litigations and real estate market in Mumbai – Brookings
• [Netherlands] The Big Problem With Investing in Amsterdam’s Hot Housing Market – Bloomberg
• [United Arab Emirates] Dubai Builder Sees Property Slump Lasting for Years – Bloomberg
• [United Kingdom] History dependence in the housing market – Bank of England

Photo by Aliis Sinisalu