This thesis examines the housing market, focusing upon the manner in which housing strategies are formulated by local authorities. The case for housing strategies which examine the needs and demands of all housing tenures has been recognised since 1977. At that time, the introduction of Housing Investment Programme and Strategies attempted to focus local housing policy and production in a strategic manner but since then the strategic policy elements have been continuously eroded. Moreover, since 1977 the housing market has changed considerably. The situation that exists at present is one where speculative housebuilders produce most new housing supply, whilst social housing is now largely provided by housing associations, rather than by local authorities. Now would appear to be an opportune time to reexamine the formulation of housing strategies, with a view to producing a strategy which is more attuned to the needs and demands of the housing market in the 1990s. This study investigates the manner in which the local authority may produce housing strategies which are more structured to the housing production processes of the 1990s. In so doing, it focuses upon three main areas. Firstly, the manner in which the housing market requires an integrated overall approach towards housing provision. In practical terms, this would lead local authorities to attempt to integrate, within an enabling context, the roles of the housing and planning departments. Secondly, as the private sector is responsible for most new housing supply, it is important that it is more closely integrated in policy formulation. This thesis suggests that greater co-ordination between the agency of enablement (local authorities) and the agency of implementation (housebuilders) should ensure that policies are more likely to be realised. The third area examined is the degree to which a local authority can gain a better understanding of local housing markets to ensure that more effective local housing strategies are developed.

This thesis investigates the contribution of productivity shocks at different aggregation levels to residential investment and relative house prices in ten local housing markets in Canada from 1986 to 2007. It has two major conclusions. First, while in BC, Ontario, and four Atlantic Provinces, residential investment is more likely to be affected by aggregate shocks, in Quebec and three Prairie Provinces, residential investment is less responsive to aggregate shocks, and more likely to be affected by region-specific shocks. Second, relative house prices are much more variable than residential investment, and largely depend on region-specific factors.

Affordability continues to be a major challenge for housing in America. According to the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University (JCHS), in 2006, 57 million households were moderately and severely cost burdened in America. Although high housing prices and the lack of real income growth are cited as the main factors behind the housing affordability problem, it has been proven that land use regulations have some responsibility in this matter as well. Data from the JCHS suggests that between 2002 and 2005, the average appreciation percentage in housing prices was greater in most stringent regulatory environments when compared to less restrictive environments. Despite this fact, and compared to analyses performed in other states, the relationship between the stringency of local land use regulatory environments and housing has not been fully addressed in Texas. The methodological approach used to characterize this relationship has been by means of the creation of a composite index measuring the stringency of local regulatory environments. In response to this lack of evidence of the characteristics of local land use regulatory environments in Texas, this research created the first city-level index characterizing local regulatory environments for housing markets in the Houston-Galveston Area. The index was created taking into account both the different and the most recent practices for the creation of indices. The index created proved to be a valid and reliable measure capable of taking into account the different aspects of the relationship between land use regulations and housing markets. Correlation procedures allowed the detection of a significant relationship between the stringency of local land use regulatory environments and local traits such as median family income, race distribution, poverty, and median housing values. After alternative indices were developed for a sensitivity and uncertainty analysis, the index proved to be a statistically robust measure against modifications on the different assumptions used for its creation. Further research could use this new composite index in empirical analysis to look at the statistical effect of regulatory environments on variables such as housing values and rent prices.

The United States is in the midst of a rather severe housing crisis. Home prices have declined and foreclosures have increased in cities all over the country. The crisis began in 2007 and has continued into the fourth quarter of 2008. Some cities have been severely affected by the housing crisis while others have been able to maintain relatively healthy housing markets. This paper demonstrates the local nature of housing markets and the factors which shape them. Analyses of the local housing markets of Austin, TX, Atlanta, GA and Miami, FL comprise the bulk of this paper and demonstrate the broad spectrum of housing market conditions that exist today. The lessons learned from the three case studies finally lead to some recommendations for local planners which could prove effective for creating and maintaining healthy local housing markets. / text

This dissertation consists of three essays on housing markets and monetary policy. The first essay focuses on the impact of monetary policy on U.S. local housing markets and finds that monetary policy has uneven impacts on local housing markets, and that the magnitude of the impacts are correlated with housing supply regulations. The second essay studies the optimal interest rate rule in a DSGE model with housing market spillovers and finds that the optimal interest rate rule responds to house price inflation even when the stabilization of house price is not among the objectives of the policymaker. The third essay is the core of this dissertation. I construct a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model in this paper to study the fluctuations in the U.S. housing markets. The model features a market for newly built houses, a secondary market for old houses, and an endogenous term structure of nominal interest rates. Negative technological progress in the housing sector explains the upward trend in house prices over the past four decades. Housing preference and technology innovations explain about 80% of the volatility of housing investment, real price of new houses, and the old-to-new house price ratio. Monetary factors explain about 15% of the volatility of housing investment, but do not significantly contribute to the price fluctuations of either new or old houses. The preference innovation to old houses is the leading determinant of the run-up in the price of old houses relative to the price of new houses during the 10-year period before the Great Recession. The term structure is endogenous in this paper, and the intertemporal preference innovation makes a non-negligible contribution to the variations in nominal interest rates. Housing market conditions do not contribute much to the fluctuations of interest rates, but significantly affect the shape of the yield curve. / Ph. D.

The construction industry in Uganda is characterized by a high incidence rate of accidents. During the late 1990s, an annual average of 49 accidents were reported in the construction industry while during the period 2001 to 2005, the annual average for this sector was 103 cases. Between 2006 and 2010, more construction accidents were registered with a total of 49 fatalities reported in Kampala metropolitan area alone. This trend has continued up to the present date. Meanwhile, the demand for housing in Uganda exceeds supply resulting into a huge housing deficit. Rapid population growth without matching housing facilities has been cited as the main cause of the housing deficit. Land holding in Uganda is characterized by multiple rights of ownership, and high social costs including land conflicts and violent evictions. Reportedly, these developments are affecting the performance of the housing sector. Given the above background, the aim of this thesis is to propose policies and strategies for improvement of construction safety performance and the housing sector in Uganda. The thesis is based on two broad themes i.e. construction safety performance and housing markets. Although the research themes are unique in their own right, they both address pertinent issues concerning the construction industry in Uganda. Whereas the first theme investigates accidents as events that affect the production of construction infrastructure (including housing), the second theme handles topical issues which affect the demand and supply for housing in Uganda. The study area is Kampala, the capital city of Uganda. In addition to the overview chapter, this thesis contains four research papers. The first two papers relate to theme on construction safety performance whereas the last two papers relate to theme on housing markets. The first paper investigates the causes of construction accidents in Kampala, establishes the prevailing injury and fatality rates, examines spatial patterns in occurrence of accidents and thereafter, proposes strategies of mitigating accidents. The second paper investigates how undiscovered rework (defined as unnecessary effort of redoing a process or activity that is incorrectly implemented the first time) leads to accidents, develops a computer based model for simulating occurrence of accidents on projects and thereafter, proposes strategies of reducing rework related accidents. Evidently, the first paper is explorative investigating construction safety issues at industry level, whereas the second paper is more specific studying safety dynamics at project level. The third paper investigates how the choice of land tenure system affects housing values and thereafter, proposes strategies of mitigating the negative effects of land tenure on the housing market. Finally, the fourth paper examines how population changes affect the housing needs of a city, develops a computer based model for simulating the city population and housing needs, and experiments a plethora of housing policy proposals. Overall, findings of this thesis such as the concept of spatial dependence in occurrence of construction accidents, where accidents at one location were found to be associated with those which occur in the neighborhood; the phenomenon of congestion, defined in this thesis as the existence of high building density amidst many fulltime workers on site, and its significant association with accidents occurrence; and the uniqueness of private mailo land tenure system and the 12% premium it offers in housing values amidst high social costs, are unique contributions to the existing body of knowledge. / <p>ISBN: 978-91-87111-05-01</p><p>QC 20150522</p> / None

In incomplete market models, agents with homothetic preferences over one non-durable consumption good and exposed to idiosyncratic income shocks use precautionary savings as an instrument to smooth consumption across different contingencies. The magnitude and role of precautionary savings is therefore essential in the understanding of savings behavior of agents in such an economy. In this dissertation, I study the effects of consumption commitments on aggregate savings behavior within an otherwise standard incomplete market framework. In the first chapter, I explore the impact of a consumption commitment good like housing in an incomplete market framework (Aiyagari(1994), Huggett(1997)). Conceptually, I concentrate on the argument whether consumption of housing is associated with changes in risk aversion and therefore reflected in precautionary savings behavior of agents. I study an analytical framework that captures key elements in the data like (i) heterogeneity in earnings through fixed effects and uninsurable idiosyncratic shocks, (ii) fraction of income spent on housing, (iii) magnitude of moving costs. In the second chapter, I present a dynamic incomplete market model with a key feature: a commitment good (housing) with positive transaction (moving) costs. I focus on a stationary recursive equilibrium for agents in the benchmark economy. I calibrate the benchmark model to the US economy. I find that the benchmark economy replicates (i) the fraction of income spent on housing services, (ii) the fraction of people moving in each period. In the third chapter, I quantitatively evaluate the magnitude of precautionary savings in the presence of housing consumption in the benchmark economy and compare it to the standard incomplete market model. Results indicate that the presence of housing leads to higher aggregate precautionary savings by nearly 13% when compared to the Aiyagari specification. I find transaction costs to have significant impact on aggregate savings behavior.

Bostadspolitiken i Sverige behöver förändras för att skapa jämlika förutsättningar för kommuner att kunna utveckla den lokala bostadsmarknaden och tillgodose sitt lagstadgade bostadsförsörjningsansvar. Landsbygder har andra förutsättningar än de urbaniserade städerna och flera av Sveriges landsbygdskommuner uppvisar en befolkningsminskning, låga bostadspriser och liten eller obefintlig nyproduktion. Denna studien har riktat sitt fokus till två landsbygdskommuner i norra Sverige och deras arbete med sin bostadsförsörjning. Syftet med studien är att undersöka vilka förutsättningar det finns i kommunerna Sorsele och Älvsbyn att tillgodo se sitt bostadsförsörjningsansvar. Syftet är också att visa potentiella åtgärder i den nationella politiken som underlättar för landsbygdskommuner att tillgodose sitt bostadsförsörjningsansvar.  Resultaten av studien visar på att det finns många problem som står vägen för att kommunerna Älvsbyn och Sorsele ska kunna förbättra sina bostadsmarknader. Några av problemen som framkommer är låga fastighetspriser, finansieringssvårigheter och ett sviktande skatteunderlag. Konkurrenssituationen som existerar mellan kommunerna om invånare och arbetstillfällen medför att kommuner har en tendens att planera för en ökande befolkning snarare än en minskande. Detta i sin tur skapar problem då planeringen av service och bostadsbestånd inte är anpassade utifrån rådande förutsättningar, utan snarare är anpassade för en större befolkning. På grund av sina små ekonomiska muskler har Sorsele och Älvsbyn svårt att själva vända den pågående utvecklingen. Utifrån rådande situation tvingas de lägga sina förhoppningar på extern finansiering, företagsetableringar och inflyttningar.   För att visa på alternativ till pågående utveckling för bostadsförsörjning i landsbygdskommuner har en framtidsstudie gjorts. I framtidsstudien identifieras tre scenarier med potential att nå en positiv framtidsvision och den utgår ifrån hur bostadspolitiken behöver förändras för att landsbygdskommuner med svaga bostadsmarknader ska kunna leva upp till sitt bostadsförsörjningsansvar. Framtidsstudien visar på att reformer inom bostadspolitiken, landsbygdspolitiken och skattepolitiken kan användas för att uppnå visionen. Trots att det råder osäkerhet om genomförbarheten och resultatet av olika reformer som föreslås i framtidsstudien, är en slutsats att framtidens bostadspolitik har mycket goda förutsättningar att lyckas skapa en förbättrad bostadsmarknad i landsbygdskommuner. / Housing policy in Sweden needs to change in order to create equal conditions for municipalities to develop the local housing market and meet their statutory housing supply responsibilities. Rural areas, particularly in northern Sweden, have long been disadvantaged by housing policies pursued by the government. Rural areas are in a difficult situation and several areas are experiencing population decline, low house prices and little or no new construction. As housing research tends to focus on housing policy from the perspective of an urban norm, this study has instead focused on housing policy in rural areas. The aim of this study is to investigate what conditions exist in the municipalities of Sorsele and Älvsbyn and how they are working to achieve their housing supply responsibilities. Furthermore, the aim is to examine potential national policy measures to help rural municipalities meet their housing responsibilities. The results of the study show that there are many problems that stand in the way of the municipalities of Älvsbyn and Sorsele improving their housing markets. Some of the problems identified are low property prices, financing difficulties and a shrinking tax base. Because of their small financial muscle, Sorsele and Älvsbyn have difficulty in reversing the current trend themselves. Given the current situation, they are forced to place their hopes in external financing, the establishment of companies and the arrival of new residents.  In contrast to current housing trends, a futures study has been undertaken to show alternatives to the current development of housing supply in rural municipalities. The study identifies three scenarios with the potential to achieve a positive vision of the future, based on how housing policy needs to change to enable rural municipalities with weak housing markets to meet their housing supply responsibilities. The futures study shows that reforms in housing policy, as well as fiscal policy can be used to achieve the vision.  Despite uncertainty about the feasibility and outcome of various reforms proposed in the future study, this study concludes that future housing policy has a very good chance of succeeding in creating an improved housing market in rural municipalities.

This doctorate explores key aspects of the economics of housing by examining Ireland's housing market bubble of the early 2000s. For earlier chapters, the main source material is a previously unused dataset of almost two million property listings, covering the entire country from 2006 until 2012, maintained by property website daft.ie. An initial chapter outlines stylised facts of Ireland's housing market 2007-2012, including a greater spread of prices over property size in the crash but a narrower spread of rents. In contrast, the geographical spread of prices and rents was largely unchanged. The spread of rents was constrained relative to the spread of prices, suggesting either renter search thresholds or buyer "lock-in" effects. To examine which was at work, the daft.ie dataset is combined with information on a range of amenities, including landscape, transport, education, social capital and market depth. Overall, there is clear evidence that the rent effects of a range of amenities are smaller than the price effects. There is limited evidence of procyclical amenity pricing, which would indicate "lock-in" effects, with the analysis suggesting instead countercyclical pricing, or "property ladder" effects during the bubble. Results from these analyses are based on listed price and rents, rather than transaction prices. The relationship between the two is examined in a separate chapter, using an additional Central Bank of Ireland dataset on mortgages. The spread between list and sale prices gap that exists between the two is decomposed into four parts, a selection spread, a matching spread, a counteroffer spread and a drawdown spread. A selection spread of up to 10% emerged in the Irish housing market after 2009, while the counteroffer spread was positive before 2009 but negative for much of the period 2009-2011. The final chapter uses both inverted-demand and price-rent ratio methods to examine the long-run determinants of house prices in Ireland from 1980 on. In addition to careful treatment of standard fundamentals, it includes a measure of credit conditions as well as the ratio of persons to households, both contributions to the literature. The resulting inverted demand error-correction model shows a clear and stable long-run relationship, which is largely preserved when cointegration between series is explored. Similarly, a model of the price-rent ratio from 2000 shows clear error-correction properties. Together, they suggest that while a range of factors drove Irish house prices 1995-2001, credit conditions were largely responsible for the subsequent increase.

The concept of the Circular Economy (CE) is proposed as a viable solution to the over-exploitation of natural resources with an economic and environmental backing. Although more commonly used in the context of non-renewable industrial materials and processes, there is a growing need to include these concepts into renewable materials that have technical functions. This thesis will discuss the concepts of CE in the context of the wooden furniture sector and how the inclusion of Value Retention Processes (VRPs) and other CE practices result in quantifiable environmental and economic benefits. Companies that are involved in these VRPs are consulted through a questionnaire. This is to better understand the process and limits of their implementations. The issue of furniture waste is highlighted to demonstrate the need for circularity in this industry and how it fits within the context of CE. A case study is conducted utilizing three comparable furniture products to populate the data needed to utilize an established CE model showcasing their quantifiable benefits (IRP, 2018). This research will lead to a basis for continued research, improvements to current CE models, and suggestions for best practices that can be implemented by industry stakeholders and consumers. The results of the company questionnaire showcase that a viable VRP market exists for the wooden furniture industry, with “Reuse” being the most utilized by consumers. The outputs of the CE model revealed that the inclusion of VRPs results in significant decreases in environmental impacts when compared with new product manufacturing.