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The return of tens of thousands of soldiers to civilian life at the end of the Second World War brought Winnipeg's longstanding housing shortage to a boiling point. The crisis [...]

This paper quantifies a tenant-side 'split incentives' problem that exists when the largest commercial sector customers are on electricity-included property lease contracts, causing them to face a marginal electricity price of zero. We use exogenous variation in weather shocks to show that the largest firms on tenant-paid contracts use up to 14 percent less electricity in response to summer temperature fluctuations. The result is retrieved under weaker identifying assumptions than previous split incentives papers, and is robust when exposed to several opportunities to fail. The electricity reduction in response to temperature increases is likely to be a lower bound when generalized nationwide and suggests that policymakers should consider a sub-metering policy to expose the largest commercial tenants to the prevailing retail electricity price. Keywords: Principal-Agent Problem, Split Incentive, Contracts, Commercial Sector, Electricity, 1. INTRODUCTION Separating the party who pays for energy from the one making decisions about electricity use has long been cited as creating incentives for energy over-consumption or underinvestment in [...]

Remote work is mainly responsible for soaring home prices and rentals, according to a recent study. In "Remote work and housing demand" (Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, [...]

The price-rent ratio in commercial real estate is highly volatile, and its variation comoves with the business cycle. To account for these two facts, we develop a dynamic general equilibrium model that explicitly introduces a rental market and incorporates the liquidity constraint on an individual firm's production as a key ingredient. Our estimation identifies the discount shock as the most important factor in driving price-rent dynamics and linking the dynamics in the real estate market to those in the real economy. We illustrate the importance of the liquidity premium and endogenous total factor productivity (TFP) in the nexus of the financial and real sectors. JEL classification: E22, E32, E44 Key words: comovements, liquidity premium, stochastic discount factor, asset pricing, production economy, heterogenous firms, endogenous TFP, general equilibrium, I. Introduction The rise and fall of real estate prices in the past decades and the 2008 financial crisis triggered by the collapse of real estate prices have generated a [...]

Definitions of poverty vary with social, cultural, and political systems. Attempts to understand poverty from poor people's perspectives reveal that poverty is a multidimensional social phenomenon. (1,2) From an epidemiological [...]

Table 4. Partnerships with Net Rental Real Estate Income (Loss), by Selected Industrial Group, Tax Year 2011 [All figures are estimates based on samples--money amounts are in thousands of dollars] [...]

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8462.2010.00616.x Byline: Ross Garnaut ([dagger]) Abstract: Abstract The Henry Review placed the taxation of rents from mines back on the national policy agenda. Mineral rent is potentially a source of neutral taxation. However, the various means of taxing resource rents in practice either fall short of the ideal of neutrality or collect for the revenue only a small proportion of the mineral rent. This article discusses the six principle instruments for taxing resource projects. It evaluates these forms of taxation in relation to stability, neutrality and government revenue maximisation. It suggests a combination of instruments that is likely to establish a good balance among objectives. Author Affiliation: ([dagger])The University of Melbourne Article History: September 2010

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8462.2010.00612.x Byline: Greg Smith ([dagger]) Author Affiliation: ([dagger])Australian Catholic University Article History: August 2010

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8551.2009.00644.x Byline: Veronique Ambrosini (2), Cliff Bowman (1) Abstract: We seek to develop the conceptual and practical understanding of causal ambiguity. Specifically we extend current thinking by setting out three types of causal ambiguity, based on whether firm resources are perceived to display linkage and/or characteristic ambiguity, and by examining for each type the impact of causal ambiguity on the sustainability of competitive advantage and on rent appropriation. We highlight the difficulties decision-makers face when they perceive ambiguity and finally we explore some implications of ambiguity with respect to resource-creation processes. Author Affiliation: (2)Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK (1)Cranfield School of Management, Cranfield, Bedford MK43 0AL, UKEmail:ambrosiniv@cardiff.ac.uk;cliff.bowman@cranfield.ac.uk

The influence of the developments in information and communication technologies (ICT) on real property market is becoming an important issue for academic discussion. This paper therefore, examined the effects of teleworking on the demand for office space in Lagos Island, Nigeria. With a random sample of 216 office users, the study showed that the long commuting time and cost coupled with the benefits of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), would result into Teleworking, reduction in the number of staff employed by their organisations and consequently a reduction in per square meter of office space required. In addition ,the study showed that the rent being paid is not a significant factor influencing the propensity to telework, but the traditional '8-to-5' office commuting time would however, become flexible. Keywords: ICT, Teleworking, Commuting and space demand, 1. Introduction Recent advances in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), especially mobile telephones and high speed computer with networking facilities (internet and intranet) have re-defined many aspects of living. The [...]

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2009.00494.x Byline: WILLIAM C. BAER (1) Abstract: The Settlement of Tithes of 1638 can be tested for biases in its London rents. Even so, it proves to be a relatively good source for seventeenth-century London, and for calculating associated median and mean rents, as well as a Gini coefficient of inequality for the distribution of resources. Through other evidence in the Settlement, rent/income ratios for London can be approximated, and from them estimates made of London's median income. Median rents and income also allow estimates of the percentage of Londoners in poverty. Though the last is inevitably disputable, the estimate holds up well to testing by other evidence. Author Affiliation: (*)University of Southern California Article History: Date submitted 13 November 2007Revised version submitted 13 January 2009Accepted 20 January 2009

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jet.2010.02.010 Byline: Aloisio Araujo (a)(b), Humberto Moreira (a) Keywords: Spence-Mirrlees condition; Global incentive compatibility; U-shaped condition; Discrete pooling Abstract: This paper studies a class of one-dimensional screening problems where the agent's utility function does not satisfy the Spence-Mirrlees condition (SMC). The strength of the SMC for hidden information problems is to provide a full characterization of implementable contracts using only the local incentive compatibility (IC) constraints. These constraints are equivalent to the monotonicity of the decision variable with respect to the agent's unobservable one-dimensional parameter. When the SMC is violated the local IC constraints are no longer sufficient for implementability and additional (global) IC constraints have to be taken into account. In particular, implementable decisions may not be monotonic and discretely pooled types must have the same marginal utility of the decision (or equivalently, get the same marginal tariff). Moreover, at the optimal decision, the principal must preserve the same trade-off between rent extraction and allocative distortion measured in the agent's marginal rent unit. In a specific setting where non-monotone contracts may be optimal we fully characterize the solution. Author Affiliation: (a) Graduate School of Economics, Getulio Vargas Foundation, Praia de Botafogo, 190, Rio de Janeiro, RJ 22250900, Brazil (b) Instituto Nacional de Matematica Pura e Aplicada, Estrada Dona Castorina, 110, Rio de Janeiro, RJ 22460902, Brazil Article History: Received 3 October 2003; Revised 8 August 2009; Accepted 3 October 2009 Article Note: (footnote) [star] We acknowledge CNPq and FAPERJ of Brazil for financial support. Preliminary versions of this paper were presented at the Universite de Toulouse 1, Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona), IMPA, PUC-Rio, EPGE/FGV, University of Chicago, Universite de Paris 1, the Nineteenth Meeting of the Brazilian Econometric Society, the 2000 World Congress of the Econometric Society (Seattle), 2006 Latin American Meeting of the Econometric Society (Cidade de Mexico) and the 2006 Stony Brook Game Theory Festival. We are grateful to A. Chassagnon, P.-A. Chiappori, D. Gottlieb, J.-J. Laffont, G. Maggi, A. Mas-Colell, J.-C. Rochet, J. Scheinkman, L. Stole, J. Tirole, an associate editor, and a referee for helpful discussions and suggestions. We would like to thank Caio Almeida for helping us with the numerical implementation of the example of the previous version of the paper and Marcos Tsuchida for important comments. Finally, we are in debt with Sergei Vieira who did a careful revision of the proofs and checked some of them numerically.

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2009.12.001 Byline: Diego Valderrama (a), James L. Anderson (b) Abstract: The remarkable growth of the global salmon aquaculture industry has generated important implications for Alaskan salmon fisheries as increased supplies of farmed product have led to declines in prices of both farmed and wild species. In the particular case of Bristol Bay sockeye salmon, falling prices and declining profit margins have led to reduced participation in the limited-entry fishery. This study conducts a formal examination of market interactions between the aquaculture and commercial fishery sectors by adapting the Homans and Wilen (1997) model of regulated open access to the context of restricted access fisheries. The econometric model reveals that limited entry regulations were initially successful in extracting rents from the Bristol Bay fishery; however, these rents were gradually dissipated as a result of overcapacity and the effect of falling ex-vessel prices. The emergence of aquaculture provides a strong rationale in favor of right-based approaches to fisheries management in Alaska. Author Affiliation: (a) Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00153 Rome, Italy (b) Department of Environmental and Natural Resource Economics, University of Rhode Island, 205 Kingston Coastal Institute, 1 Greenhouse Rd, Kingston, RI 02881, USA Article History: Received 26 August 2008

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5982.2009.01553.x Byline: Pierre M. Picard (1), Eric Toulemonde (2) Keywords: L16 Abstract: Abstract. In the Dixit-Stiglitz model of monopolistic competition, entry of firms is socially too small. Other authors have shown that excess entry is also a possibility with other preferences for diversity. We show that workers' rents also contribute to explain excess entry through a general equilibrium mechanism. Larger wages indeed raises the aggregate earnings and firms sales and profits, which entices too many firms to enter. We discuss the possibility of over-provision of varieties by comparing the equilibrium to unconstrained and constrained social optima and to other regulatory frameworks where wages are not controlled. Abstract (Spanish): A propos de la concurrence monopolistique et de la diversite optimale de produits: la rente des travailleurs porte a consequence. D'apres le modele de concurrence monopolistique de Dixit et Stiglitz, le nombre de firmes presentes sur un marche est socialement trop faible. Plusieurs auteurs ont utilise d'autres preferences pour montrer qu'il est aussi possible que la concurrence monopolistique mene a un nombre trop important de firmes. Nous utilisons un mecanisme d'equilibre general pour montrer que la presence d'un nombre excessif de firmes peut aussi etre cause par la rente que les travailleurs syndiques peuvent obtenir. Des salaires eleves accroissent les revenus de l'economie dans son ensemble, ce qui accroit les ventes des firmes et donc leurs profits. De la sorte, trop de firmes risquent d'entrer sur ce marche. Nous comparons l'equilibre decentralisea un optimum social non contraint, a un optimum social contraint et a d'autres cadres de regulation ou les salaires ne sont pas controles. Author Affiliation: (1)CREA, University of Luxembourg (2)Department of Economics, FUNDP-University of Namur

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2007.05.006 Byline: Philippe Bontems (a), Murray Fulton (b) Keywords: Asymmetric information; Cooperatives; Investor-owned firms; Redistribution; Rent-seeking Abstract: As an organizational type, cooperatives are in general not the dominant form of enterprise. Nevertheless, cooperatives and cooperative-like organizations do play important roles in a number of sectors, suggesting that in some circumstances they are more efficient than other business forms. This paper explores the importance of membership goals on the relative efficiency of the cooperative form of organization. The cooperative cost (and hence production efficiency) advantage is directly linked to the goal alignment between the cooperative and its members, and is influenced by the extent of income redistribution between members and the degree of rent seeking that takes place in the organization. When there is no aversion to income inequality, the members produce at their first best levels. However, as aversion to inequality rises, the production profile of the members converges to the production profile generated when the members face an IOF. Regarding rent seeking, if the more (less) efficient members are able to get their profits valued more, total output is increased (decreased). As a consequence, consumers may benefit from the lobbying that occurs inside a cooperative where the powerful members are the most efficient agents. Author Affiliation: (a) Toulouse School of Economics (GREMAQ-INRA, IDEI), 31000 Toulouse, France (b) University of Saskatchewan (Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy), Saskatoon, Canada SK S7N 5B8 Article History: Received 18 August 2005; Accepted 2 May 2007

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9906.2009.00451.x Byline: JOHN I. GILDERBLOOM (1), LIN YE (2), MATTHEW J. HANKA (3), KAREEM M. USHER (4) Abstract: ABSTRACT: This study extends the intercity rent differentials investigation by Gilderbloom and Appelbaum (1988) in relatively independent housing markets to see how it can be replicated using U.S. census data from the year 2000 against the 1970 and 1980 models with the addition of several new variables to measure its impact on intercity rents. We find that region, race, and climate no longer explain rent differentials in 2000 as it did in the 1980 research, while affirming that a large percentage of old houses and small mom-and-pop landlords causes rents to fall. We find that both the cost of homeownership and the level of household income remain critical factors in explaining the level of median rent across cities. We also find a strong correlation between cities with extensive anti-war activity in the late 1960s and same sex households having higher rents, although more research needs to be done before we argue a causal relationship. We contend that sociology needs to be put back into the equation in order to understand how rents vary from city to city. Our explanation of rent variations adds a social dimension that most other researches miss. We also show how the amount of explanatory power is increased significantly by adding in a sociological dimension. Author Affiliation: (1)University of Louisville (2)Roosevelt University (3)University of Louisville (4)University of Louisville Article note: Direct Correspondence to: John I. Gilderbloom, Sustainable Urban Neighborhoods, School of Urban and Public Affairs, University of Louisville, 426 West Bloom Street, Louisville, KY 40208. E-mail: jgilde02@sprynet.com.

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5906.2009.01459.x Byline: Benito Arrunada (1) Abstract: Moral codes are produced and enforced by more or less specialized means and are subject to standard economic forces. This article argues that the intermediary role played by the Catholic Church between God and Christians, a key difference from Protestantism, faces the standard tradeoff of specialization benefits and agency costs. It applies this trade-off hypothesis to confession of sins to priests, an institution that epitomizes such intermediation, showing that this hypothesis fits cognitive, historical, and econometric evidence better than a simpler rent-seeking story. In particular, Catholics who confess more often are observed to comply more with the moral code; however, no relationship is observed between mass attendance and moral compliance. Author Affiliation: (1)Department of Economics and Business Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Barcelona GSE Article note: Correspondence should be addressed to Benito Arrunada, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Trias Fargas, 25. 08005-Barcelona, Spain. E-mail: benito.arrunada@upf.edu

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2009.05.001 Byline: John V. Winters Keywords: Wage differentials; Prices; Cost of living; Amenities; Quality of life Abstract: This paper investigates the equilibrium relationship between wages and prices across labor markets. Of central interest is the extent to which workers receive higher wages to compensate for differences in the cost of living. According to the spatial equilibrium hypothesis, the utility of homogenous workers should be equal across labor markets. This implies that controlling for amenity differences across areas, the elasticity between wages and the general price level across areas should equal one, at least under certain conditions. I test this hypothesis and find that the predicted relationship holds when housing prices are measured by rents and the general price level is instrumented to account for measurement error. When housing prices are measured by housing values, however, the wage-price elasticity is significantly less than one, even using instrumental variables. Rents reflect the price paid for housing per unit of time and are arguably the superior measure. Thus, findings in this essay provide support for the full compensation hypothesis. These findings also have important implications for researchers estimating the implicit prices of amenities or ranking the quality of life across areas. Author Affiliation: Department of Economics, School of Business, Auburn University at Montgomery, PO Box 244023, Montgomery, AL 36124-4023 United States Article History: Received 8 November 2008; Revised 28 April 2009; Accepted 4 May 2009 Article Note: (footnote) [star] The author thanks the editor, two anonymous referees, Barry Hirsch, Doug Krupka, Dave Sjoquist, Mary Beth Walker, and seminar participants at Georgia State University and Auburn University at Montgomery for helpful comments. The usual caveat applies.

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jue.2009.06.001 Byline: Michael D. Eriksen Keywords: Housing policy; Tax expenditures; Housing supply Abstract: The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program awards a subsidy to private developers who construct and operate housing units with income-targeted rent controls for at least 15 years. The program allocated $6.6 billion to developers in 2006, and over 1.6 million units have been subsidized under the program since its inception in 1987. A historical literature suggests place-based housing subsidies, such as the LIHTC program, will be more expensive in providing the same level of housing support to the poor than tenant-based strategies (i.e., housing vouchers). This paper uses an administrative data series of LIHTC subsidized properties in California to show the program encourages developers to construct housing units that are an estimated 20% more expensive per square foot than average industry estimates. It is additionally shown that due to liquidity constraints faced by LIHTC primary developers in how the subsidy is allocated, virtually all developers sell the tax credits at a substantial discount below their statutory value immediately after construction. This price is estimated to be $0.73 per $1 of tax credit, or $1.8 billion annually, as compared to alternatively allocating a lump sum grant to developers. Author Affiliation: University of Georgia, Department of Insurance, Legal Studies, and Real Estate, 206 Brooks Hall, Terry College of Business, Athens, GA 30602-6255, USA Article History: Received 26 June 2007; Revised 10 June 2009

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jue.2009.06.002 Byline: Sean D. Campbell (a), Morris A. Davis (b), Joshua Gallin (a), Robert F. Martin (a) Keywords: Rent-price ratio; House prices; Housing rents; Interest rates Abstract: We apply the dynamic Gordon growth model to the housing market in 23 US metropolitan areas, the four Census regions, and the nation from 1975 to 2007. The model allows the rent-price ratio at each date to be split into the expected present discounted values of rent growth, real interest rates, and a housing premium over real rates. We show that housing premia are variable and forecastable and account for a significant fraction of rent-price ratio volatility at the national and local levels, and that covariances among the three components damp fluctuations in rent-price ratios. Thus, explanations of house-price dynamics that focus only on interest rate movements and ignore these covariances can be misleading. These results are similar to those found for stocks and bonds. Author Affiliation: (a) Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Washington, DC, USA (b) Wisconsin School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI, USA Article History: Received 4 March 2009; Revised 19 June 2009 Article Note: (footnote) [star] We thank Mike Gibson, Michael Palumbo, David Reifschneider, Tom Tallarini, two anonymous referees and the editor. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System or other members of its staff.

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2008.08.003 Byline: Andrea Galeotti (a), Jose Luis Moraga-Gonzalez (b) Abstract: We study a two-sided market where a platform attracts firms selling differentiated products and buyers interested in those products. In the subgame perfect equilibrium of the game, the platform fully internalises the network externalities present in the market and firms and consumers all participate in the platform with probability one. The monopolist intermediary extracts all the economic rents generated in the market, except when firms and consumers can trade outside the platform, in which case consumers obtain a rent that corresponds to the utility they would get if they did trade outside the platform. The market allocation is constraint-efficient in the sense that the monopoly platform does not introduce distortions over and above those arising from the market power of the differentiated product sellers. An increase in the number of retailers increases the amount of variety in the platform but at the same time increases competition. As a result, the platform lowers the firm fees and raises the consumer charges. In contrast, an increase in the extent of product differentiation raises the value of the platform for the consumers but weakens competition. In this case, the platform raises both the charge to the consumers and the fee for the firms. Author Affiliation: (a) Department of Economics, University of Essex, UK (b) Department of Economics and Econometrics, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Groningen, PO Box 800, 9700 AV Groningen, The Netherlands Article History: Received 28 March 2007; Accepted 6 August 2008

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2451.2009.00704.x Byline: Richard M. Auty (1) Abstract: Autocracies tend to be more successful than democracies in deploying natural resource rent. This renders democratic Botswana's success an anomaly, which Collier and Hoeffler (2006) attribute to strong checks and balances. This chapter assesses this thesis by comparing rent deployment since the 1960s in democratic Botswana with that in democratic Venezuela and in Indonesia's autocracy under Suharto. It draws on Rent-cycling theory, which posits that the higher the ratio of rent/GDP the more likely it is that the political state will pursue rent distribution at the expense of wealth creation; so that rent is cycled through patronage channels at the expense of markets; and, consequently, the economy is distorted. This increases its vulnerability to external shocks and a collapse in growth. The chapter reaches four conclusions. First, a critical determinant of Rent-cycling outcomes is the strength of the incentives for the elite to prioritise wealth creation over rent distribution. Low rent confers such incentives, as do a rent stream that is precarious (Botswana) and a perception of rent exhaustion (Indonesia). Second, effective institutions reflect rather than mould them wealth-creating incentives. Patronage-driven rent cycling tends to corrode institutions, whereas market-channelled rent tends to consolidate them. Third, few governments manage to pursue all four key policies required for effective rent cycling. Finally, Rent-cycling impacts are cumulative and negative circles are difficult to arrest. Author Affiliation: (1)Lancaster University

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2008.05.006 Byline: Paul Collier, Anke Hoeffler Keywords: Political economy; Natural resources; Growth Abstract: Resource-rich countries have tended to be autocratic and also have tended to use their resource wealth badly. The neoconservative agenda of promoting democratization in resource-rich countries thus offers the hopeful prospect of a better use of their economic opportunities. This paper examines whether the effect of democracy on economic performance is distinctive in resource-rich societies. We show that a priori the sign of the effect is ambiguous: Resource rents could either enhance or undermine the economic consequences of democracy. We therefore investigate the issue empirically. We first build a new dataset on country-specific resource rents, annually for the period 1970-2001. Using a global panel dataset, we find that in developing countries the combination of high natural resource rents and open democratic systems has been growth-reducing. Checks and balances offset this adverse effect. Thus, resource-rich economies need a distinctive form of democracy with particularly strong checks and balances. Unfortunately, this is rare: Checks and balances are public goods and so are liable to be undersupplied in new democracies. Over time they are eroded by resource rents. Author Affiliation: Department of Economics, University of Oxford, UK Article History: Received 13 October 2006; Accepted 19 May 2008

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9787.2008.00565.x Byline: Nathan B. Anderson (1) Abstract: ABSTRACT. This paper considers a two-community model with free mobility, public expenditures set by majority voting, amenities that differ across communities, and two types of taxpayers sorting across communities according to different preferences. Residents pay local taxes, consume public services, and have the right to vote. Vacationers cannot vote, yet pay local taxes, and consume amenities. Amenities attract vacationers whose tax payments produce rents reducing the costs of public spending for permanent residents. These extractable rents produce stability in otherwise unstable equilibria. Relatively wealthy communities are generally less able than poor communities to extract rents. Author Affiliation: (1)Department of Economics and Institute of Government and Public Affairs, University of Illinois at Chicago. E-mail:nba@uic.edu Article History: Received: February 2006; revised: June 2007; accepted: August 2007.

The growth of a new type of rented housing in which occupiers share amenity space to cut costs could have major implications for planning John Geoghegan reports Co-living is a [...]

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2007.01.002 Byline: Tamon Ito Keywords: Rental housing market; Comparative statics; Rent equation; Differential rent; Quality improvement Abstract: This paper presents comparative statics results on a rental housing market model with a finite number of apartments. The apartments are classified into categories based on their housing attributes. The apartments in a given category are treated as equals having the same rent. The main result is that when an improvement occurs in one category, the rent of the category increases, whereas rents of better categories decrease. We compare this result with another comparative statics result, and also with Braid's results in his model with a continuum of housing qualities. Author Affiliation: Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8573, Japan Article History: Received 21 February 2005; Revised 30 November 2006; Accepted 15 January 2007

Introduction and summary Home prices have been in the news a lot lately. In particular, some observers fear that the swift increase in prices during the early part of the [...]

Byline: Albert Saiz Keywords: Immigration; Housing prices Abstract: Is there a local economic impact of immigration? Immigration pushes up rents and housing values in US destination cities. The positive association of rent growth and immigrant inflows is pervasive in time series for all metropolitan areas. I use instrumental variables based on a 'shift-share' of national levels of immigration into metropolitan areas. An immigration inflow equal to 1% of a city's population is associated with increases in average rents and housing values of about 1%. The results suggest an economic impact that is an order of magnitude bigger than that found in labor markets. Author Affiliation: University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School, 3620 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104.6302, USA Article History: Received 24 October 2005; Revised 7 July 2006 Article Note: (footnote) [star] The paper is a revised version of an older working paper [A. Saiz, Immigration and Housing Rents in American Cities, Working paper 03-12, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, 2003].

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jue.2006.06.004 Byline: David P. Sims Keywords: Rent control; Maintenance; Housing supply; Spillover effects Abstract: This paper uses the sudden end of rent control in Massachusetts in 1995 to estimate the effects of rent control. I examine Boston MSA data from the American Housing Survey years 1985-1998 to determine how rent control affected the quantity, price and quality of rental housing. My results suggest rent control had little effect on the construction of new housing but did encourage owners to shift units away from rental status and reduced rents substantially. Rent control also led to deterioration in the quality of rental units, but these effects appear to have been concentrated in smaller items of physical damage. I also examine specifications that allow rent control to affect rent levels both directly through controlled status and indirectly through spillover effects from nearby rent controlled units. These estimates imply that rent control may have small effects on the price of the non-controlled rental housing stock. Author Affiliation: Economics Department, Brigham Young University, 130 FOB, Provo, UT 84602, USA Article History: Received 13 February 2006; Revised 16 June 2006

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2006.03.006 Byline: Antonio M. Bento (a), Mark Jacobsen (b) Keywords: Ricardian rents; Environmental taxation; Double-dividend hypothesis Abstract: Recent studies on the so-called double dividend hypothesis find that environmental tax swaps exacerbate the costs of the tax system and therefore do not produce a double dividend. We extend these models by incorporating a fixed-factor in the production of the polluting good and, therefore, allowing Ricardian rents to be generated in the economy. In this setting, an environmental tax reform with revenues used to cut pre-existing labor taxes can produce a double dividend. Moreover, the overall costs of environmental tax swaps are negative up to 11 percent of emissions reductions, suggesting the potential for a strong double dividend and confirming that environmental taxes should be part of the optimal tax system. Author Affiliation: (a) School of Public Policy and National Center for Smart Growth, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA (b) Department of Economics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-6072, USA Article History: Received 7 October 2005

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2006.06.009 Byline: Masayuki Nakagawa (a), Makoto Saito (b), Hisaki Yamaga (c) Keywords: Earthquake risk; Risk aversion; Housing rent; Hazard map Abstract: We estimate the extent of earthquake risk aversion in housing rents using a 1998 hazard map of the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. These rents reflect earthquake risk generally and the interaction between the earthquake-resistant quality of construction and the risk aversion of households. We find that housing rents are substantially lower in risky areas than in safer areas, even after controlling for other possible effects, and that the rent of an apartment built prior to the Building Standard Law being amended is discounted more substantially in risky areas than those built after this date. In addition, according to a cost-benefit analysis based on these estimation results, investment in earthquake-proof structures is profitable for landlords who own older wood-framed apartment buildings in relatively risky areas given the current level of the government subsidy introduced in 2002. Author Affiliation: (a) Nihon University, Misakicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo 101-0061, Japan (b) Hitotsubashi University, Naka, Kunitachi, Tokyo 186-8601, Japan (c) Tsukuba University, Tennodai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8573, Japan

We study dynamic pricing by a monopolist selling to buyers who learn from each other's purchases. The price posted in each period serves to extract rent from the current buyer, [...]

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2005.11.021 Byline: D. Andrew Wardell Keywords: Africa; Ghana; governance; forests; decentralization; local politics Abstract: Decentralization of natural resource management is often presented as a novelty. However, successive attempts to decentralize authority were undertaken during the development of forest policy in the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast Colony between the 1930s and 1950s. From 1960, however, this was rolled back. Forest policy was thenceforth characterized by centralization, exclusion, and restrictive legislation. New forest policies of local management from the 1990s attempt to change this but differ from 'colonial decentralization' in terms of institutional fragmentation and the absence of effective fiscal decentralization. The assumed illegality of people's use of the resources and the non-enforcement of the law provides a context for monetary and political rent seeking for political agents. Author Affiliation: University of Copenhagen, Denmark Article History: Accepted 10 November 2005

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2004.10.004 Byline: Roland Strausz Keywords: Paperwork; Principal; Organization Abstract: This paper offers an explanation for why a principal may demand too much paperwork from a subordinate: due to limited liability and moral hazard a principal is unable to appropriate all rents. Internal paperwork allows a more accurate monitoring of the agent and enables the principal to appropriate a larger part of the agent's rent. In her decision the principal disregards the agent's cost increase of more internal paperwork. Consequently, the requested amount of internal paperwork may be too high from both the agent's personal point of view and the organization as a whole. Author Affiliation: Free University Berlin, Department of Economics, Boltzmannstr. 20, D-14195 Berlin, Germany Article History: Received 16 October 2003; Accepted 21 October 2004

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2005.11.014 Byline: Martin E. Sandbu Keywords: natural resource curse; political economy; taxation; distribution; institutions; transparency Abstract: Countries rich in fuel and mineral resources tend to have worse development outcomes than other countries. Commodity rents free governments from the discipline of tax revenues, so that natural resource wealth worsens the quality of governing institutions. I propose a system of Natural Wealth Accounts that converts rents into tax revenues, mimicking the discipline that tax revenues impose in resource-poor countries. This will create an endowment effect (citizens will require the government to justify why it is taxing their rents); an information effect (citizens will understand the problem better); and an income effect (the population will retain some of the rents). Author Affiliation: University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA Article History: Accepted 26 November 2005

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2004.05.004 Byline: Bibhas Saha (a), Trivikraman Thampy (b) Keywords: Corruption; Information rent; Countervailing incentive; Ratchet effect Abstract: We present a dynamic model of subsidized credit provision to examine how asymmetric information exacerbates inefficiency caused by corruption. If a borrower and a corrupt official interact with symmetric information, credit terms can be so designed that corruption will affect only the borrower's profit, but not repayment. With private information on the borrower's productivity this result changes. Because of dynamic information rents, the official may induce one type of the borrower to default. The government can improve the repayment rate, but will have to under-provide credit. In contrast, some allowance of default permits a greater supply of credit. Author Affiliation: (a) Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Gen. A. K. Vaidya Marg, Santosh Nagar, Goregaon (E), Mumbai 400065, India (b) Department of Economics, New York University, NY 10003, USA Article History: Received 20 June 2003; Accepted 9 May 2004

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2005.01.002 Byline: Stephen Gibbons (a), Alan Manning (b) Keywords: Housing subsidies; Tax incidence Abstract: This paper estimates the incidence of the most important UK rent subsidy, housing benefit (HB). It exploits changes to housing benefit in 1996 and 1997 that reduced the maximum subsidy payable. The research design is based on the fact that the changes only applied to new claimants and not to pre-existing claimants. We use difference-in-differences to estimate the size of the treatment effect. We show that the changes did have an effect on the level of housing subsidy with an estimated fall of 10-15% in benefit receipt in the treatment group relative to the control group. There is also evidence that rents paid fell by 6-11%. We find no evidence this can be explained by a fall in housing consumption by the treatment group. Our estimates imply that between 60% and two-thirds of the incidence of the subsidy reduction was on landlords. Author Affiliation: (a) Department of Geography and Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK (b) Department of Economics and Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK Article History: Received 30 July 2003; Revised 11 January 2005; Accepted 26 January 2005

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jue.2005.09.005 Byline: Mamoru Kaneko, Tamon Ito, Yu-ichi Osawa Keywords: Rental housing; Apartment; Indivisible goods; Competitive equilibrium; Rent equation; Comparative statics; Duality Abstract: We present certain duality results on comparative statics on competitive rent vectors in the rental housing market model. In the model, apartments as indivisible goods are classified into a finite number of categories, and are traded for one composite commodity. Our concern is about certain general properties of the behavior of rents with parameter changes. In particular, the rent changes are intimately related to the boundary income changes of the categories of apartments. Both changes are endogenously determined in equilibrium. We will show that these changes exhibit nice dual structures. We will also apply our model and comparative statics to a rental housing market in the Tokyo metropolitan area. Author Affiliation: Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8573, Japan Article History: Received 25 January 2005; Revised 26 September 2005

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2004.06.014 Byline: Asim Ijaz Khwaja (a), Atif Mian (b) Abstract: How costly is the poor governance of market intermediaries? Using unique trade level data from the stock market in Pakistan, we find that when brokers trade on their own behalf, they earn annual rates of return that are 50-90 percentage points higher than those earned by outside investors. Neither market timing nor liquidity provision by brokers can explain this profitability differential. Instead we find compelling evidence for a specific trade-based 'pump and dump' price manipulation scheme: When prices are low, colluding brokers trade amongst themselves to artificially raise prices and attract positive-feedback traders. Once prices have risen, the former exit leaving the latter to suffer the ensuing price fall. Conservative estimates suggest these manipulation rents can account for almost a half of total broker earnings. These large rents may explain why market reforms are hard to implement and emerging equity markets often remain marginal with few outsiders investing and little capital raised. Author Affiliation: (a) Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (b) Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago, USA Article History: Received 12 December 2003; Accepted 11 June 2004 Article Note: (footnote) [star] We are extremely grateful to the Securities and Exchange Commission Pakistan (SECP) for providing us the data used in this paper, and to Mr. Khalid Mirza and Mr. Haroon Sharif for clarifying questions. The results in this paper do not necessarily represent the views of the SECP. We also thank Ulf Axelson, Abhijit Banerjee, Nick Barberis, Gene Fama, Francisco Gomes, Simon Johnson, Steve Kaplan, Tobi Moskowitz, Andrei Shleifer, Jeremy Stein, an anonymous referee, and seminar participants at Boston University, Chicago GSB, Harvard, LSE, MIT, LUMS, Michigan, NBER, NEUDC Conference, and SECP for helpful comments and suggestions. All errors are our own.

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jue.2004.06.003 Byline: Ashok Deo Bardhan (a), Robert H. Edelstein (a), Charles Leung (b) Abstract: We present evidence on the impact of international economic openness upon residential real estate, consistent with the well-known Balassa-Samuelson effect, which suggests that increasing openness raises relative prices of non-tradable goods and services. Using a data set for 46 cities in different countries, we find that urban rents are positively affected by the openness of the economy and by city size. Author Affiliation: (a) F-602, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, CA, USA (b) Department of Economics, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Article History: Received 19 June 2003; Revised 23 June 2004

Summary. Changes in the business environment associated with globalisation, innovation in information and communications technologies and the drive towards more flexible production systems should be reflected in changes in occupational requirements for property. Although much research assumes that property, as a derived demand, will simply be supplied in response to changed demand, in practice, the institutional structure of the market can act as a constraint on the provision of appropriate space. Empirical research into new working practices and their impact on the property portfolio suggest that change is muted and gradual. In part, this reflects resistance to the adoption of working practices; in part, it reflects the inertia of a traditional model of property procurement. However, there is growing evidence of innovation in the nature of provision and more active and strategic management of the property resource. Research in this area, as in many other areas of real estate, is hampered by lack of reliable and accessible data. However, it is also damaged by a lack of attention to theory and methodology, with too much emphasis on anecdote, assertion and unsound empiricism. A more rigorous approach to research is needed if the dynamics of corporate real estate are to be fully understood.

This paper develops a new way to present standard urban models graphically and a new rent function called the rent-commuting cost function. The rent-commuting cost function represents the relationship between rent and total commuting cost. At least theoretically, it is superior to the traditional rent-distance function in depicting and measuring stylized facts of the city because its gradient is independent of the functional form of the commuting cost function and falls as household income rises.