The Unassuming Economist

Dani Rodrik says:

“That neoliberalism is a slippery, shifting concept, with no explicit lobby of defenders, does not mean that it is irrelevant or unreal. Who can deny that the world has experienced a decisive shift toward markets from the 1980s on? Or that center-left politicians—Democrats in the United States, Socialists and Social Democrats in Europe—enthusiastically adopted some of the central creeds of Thatcherism and Reaganism, such as deregulation, privatization, financial liberalization, and individual enterprise? Much of our contemporary policy discussion remains infused with norms and principles supposedly grounded in homo economicus.

But the looseness of the term neoliberalism also means that criticism of it often misses the mark. There is nothing wrong with markets, private entrepreneurship, or incentives—when deployed appropriately. Their creative use lies behind the most significant economic achievements of our time. As we heap scorn on neoliberalism, we risk throwing out some of neoliberalism’s useful ideas.

The real trouble is that mainstream economics shades too easily into ideology, constraining the choices that we appear to have and providing cookie-cutter solutions. A proper understanding of the economics that lies behind neoliberalism would allow us to identify—and to reject—ideology when it masquerades as economic science. Most importantly it would help us develop the institutional imagination we badly need to redesign capitalism for the twenty-first century.”

Here’s the rest of the article.

On cross-country:

• Why I won’t buy a house in any major city – and neither should you – World Economic Forum
• Migration and Its Impact on Cities – World Economic Forum
• Why there? Developers’ rationale for building social housing in the urban periphery in Latin America – Cities
• Prime Global Cities Index – Q3 2017 – Knight Frank
• Homes and Mortgages 2017 – Housing Costs and Prices – ING
• Public expenditure on housing: the shift from capital spend to housing allowances. A European trend? – National Housing Federation
• Demographic structure and housing prices: East Asia and Europe – Ideas
• Bloomberg Global City Housing Affordability Index – Bloomberg

On the US:

• Reactions to Tax Change on Mortgages – Atlantic, Bloomberg, CNBC, Curbed, HousingWire, MarketWatch, New York Times, Wall Street Journal
• Sustainable housing finance – American Enterprise Institute
• Sustainable housing finance: Private Sector Perspective on Housing Finance Reform – Urban Institute
• The Human Cost of Zoning Regulation – Cato Institute
• Why Do People Move and Why Don’t They? – Cato Institute
• Tax Reform and Affordable Housing Subsidies – Cato Institute
• Stuck! The Law and Economics of Residential Stagnation – Yale
• Regulation, Land Constraints, and California’s Boom and Bust – Regional Science and Urban Economics
• Detroit: From Motor City to Housing Incubator – New York Times
• From the archives: Fed chair nominee Powell on housing finance reform – American Enterprise Institute
• Airbnb: A Good Neighbor? – Harvard Political Review
• The Fight Over Fair Housing Goes to Court (Again) – Citylab

On other countries:

• [Bulgaria] A Roof Over Our Heads: Ensuring Adequate Housing for All Bulgarians – World Bank
• [Finland] Why housing policy in Finland is a success story – Housing Europe
• [India] Time to rethink public housing? – The Hindu
• [New Zealand] New Zealand to ban foreign home buyers – Global Property Guide
• [Norway] Housing Crash Dodged in Norway, But Intervention Door Stays Open – Bloomberg
• [United Kingdom] London’s bubbly housing market goes flat – Economist
• [United Kingdom] FT Money Show: Property prices, self build and pension transfers – Financial Times
• [United Kingdom] How to solve the UK housing crisis – Financial Times
• [United Kingdom] Housing Market Discount Rates: Evidence from Property Taxes – London School of Economics

Photo by Aliis Sinisalu

Interesting presentation by Stansbury and Summers.

Roads or schools? It’s a question akin to the “guns or butter” choice that governments around the world confronted in the 20^th century: How to spend a nation’s finite resources to produce the maximum benefit for its people. A new IMF working paper finds that low-income countries tend to spend less on schools than on roads as a share of GDP.

“In the presence of distortionary taxation and debt aversion, the different pace at which roads and schools contribute to economic growth turns out to be central to this decision. Specifically, while costs are front-loaded for both types of investment, the growth benefits of schools accrue with a delay. To put things in perspective, with a ‘big push’, even assuming a large (15 percent) return differential in favor of schools, the government would still limit the fraction of the investment scale-up going to schools to about a half. Besides debt aversion, political myopia also turns out to be a crucial determinant of public investment composition. A ‘big push’, by accelerating growth outcomes, mitigates myopia—but at the expense of greater risks to fiscal and debt sustainability. Tied concessional financing and grants can potentially mitigate the adverse effects of both debt aversion and political myopia”

On cross-country:

• Mortgaging Europe’s periphery – London School of Economics
• The World Bank and the Globalisation of Housing Finance – University of York
• Quarterly Review of European Mortgage Markets – European Mortgage Federation
• Inclusive City Development: City-Wide Slum Upgrading and Housing Development – World Resources Institute
• House Prices Are Up 70 Percent But Experts Don’t Think There’s a Bubble – Bloomberg
• An Urban Equilibrium Model with Rent Controls Applied to Paris Urban Area – Institut d’Economia de Barcelona

On the US:

• Homebuilders hit after Republicans propose cap on mortgage-interest deduction – Financial Times, HousingWire
• The mortgage rate conundrum – VOX
• Immigrants and Housing Demand – Cato Institute
• Mortgage Debt, Consumption, and Illiquid Housing Markets in the Great Recession – Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
• Trends in Housing Problems and Federal Housing Assistance – Urban Institute
• Stuck in Place, U.S. Homeowners Hunker Down as Housing Supply Stays Tight – Wall Street Journal
• Are house prices a new bubble? – Calculated Risk
• America isn’t in a housing bubble, but some cities might be – Urban Institute
• A crisis caused by housing policies, not lack of regulation – American Enterprise Institute
• Where Evictions Hurt the Most – Citylab
• Sand castles on Jersey Shore: property boom defies US flood risk – Financial Times
• How will Hurricanes Harvey and Irma affect housing markets in Texas and Florida? – Urban Institute
• As Lenders Digitize, Borrowers Still Want the “Human Touch” – Fannie Mae
• Home Builders Will Oppose Republican Tax Bill – Wall Street Journal
• Job Growth Slows Where Housing Costs a Lot – Bloomberg
• Mapping Homeowners’ Associations: Who lives in them and How do they Affect Housing Values? – University of California, Irvine

On other countries:

• [Australia] Australia’s Housing Boom Is ‘Officially Over,’ UBS Says – Bloomberg
• [Australia] Quarterly Housing & Economic Review – October 2017 Release – CoreLogic
• [Australia] As Dwelling Construction Surges Housing Turnover Falls – CoreLogic
• [Canada] Foreign buyers inch back into Vancouver housing market – Reuters
• [China] The Conventional View of China’s Problems May Be All Wrong: Q&A – Bloomberg
• [Ireland] Revised mortgage measures – a six-month snapshot – Central Bank of Ireland
• [New Zealand] New Zealand’s Foreign Home Ownership Ban Won’t Cause Price Collapse-Trade Min – New York Times, Quartz
• [United Kingdom] Home values and firm behaviour – Bank of England
• [United Kingdom] Inside London’s Huge Experiment in Predicting the Housing Future – Bloomberg
• [United Arab Emirates] Dubai: Service Me This – REIDIN

Photo by Aliis Sinisalu