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A study was conducted to estimate a tenure choice equation and to simulate hypothetical changes in tax concessions using 1998 American Housing Survey data. Changes to income tax concessions for homeowners have been previously recommended. Findings indicate that mortgage interest and property tax deductions reduce the homeownership rate for households.

This article compares the homeownership rates of young households in Australia and the United States and evaluates the impacts of the two countries' different approaches to subsidizing homeownership. Since about [...]

A study of young people in Australian cities shows that decisions to leave the parental home are often linked to marriage and having children. Earning ability affects young people's decisions to stay at home or live alone. Housing costs also affect decisions to live alone. Males are more likely to live at home than are females, and are also more likely to live with unrelated adults, partly because they marry later than females. Young people with many siblings are more likely to leave home as are those with step-parents.

Summary. The analysis reported in this article incorporates direct measures of borrowing constraints into an otherwise standard model of the home-ownership decision in Australia. Borrowing constraints take into account mortgage [...]

An econometric analysis of tenure choice in Sydney, Australia, and Melbourne, Australia, is conducted. The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of the user cost of housing that is occupied by an owner on the probability of homeownership in Australia. It also aims to examine the theoretical relationship between user costs and housing tenure choice. For the purpose of this research, cross-sectional data from a housing survey performed in 1991 is used. Results show that the inclusion of user costs in the tenure choice model leads to a substantial betterment of goodness-of-fit although it also contributes to the marginal probability for fixed income to become negative. This may represent an inclination for higher income groups in Sydney and Melbourne to reside in inner locations where renting is more prevalent because prices are high when compared to rents.

The rent gap theory of gentrification has inspired a substantial amount of critical attention as well as several empirical studies. None of these studies addresses a fundamental problem with the rent gap hypothesis - namely, its dependence on a distinction between actual and potential land rent. That distinction does not contribute to the explanation of either the location or timing of changes in land use. And, contrary to some claims, there are no antecedents for the rent gap in the history of economic ideas - whether Marxian or neoclassical. It is concluded that the standard neoclassical concept of land-use succession is more coherent than the rent gap concept. However, neither approach explains how neighbourhoods previously subject to disinvestment come to be perceived to have the potential for reinvestment and higher land rents.

This article resolves the conflict between biological and cultural explanations of aesthetic behavior that is evident in the landscape aesthetics literature. In resolving that conflict, the article combines biological, cultural, and personal bases for aesthetics in a comprehensive paradigm for research in landscape aesthetics. This paradigm is based on Vygotsky's developmental approach to understanding the human mind and human behavior. Vygotsky's method leads to the identification of three fundamental processes of development: phylogenesis (biological evolution), sociogenesis (cultural history), and ontogenesis (individual development). These correspond to three modes of existence--the Umwelt, the Mitwelt, and the Eigenwelt--identified phenomenologically by the existential analysts. These in turn correspond to three modes of aesthetic experience: biological, cultural, and personal. The interrelations of the three modes of aesthetic experience are discussed, with particular emphasis on the biological and cultural modes. It is concluded that each mode has distinct qualities that justify its separate inclusion within the paradigm. Finally, the three modes are characterized as sets of aesthetic constraints and opportunities, labeled laws, rules, and strategies, respectively. Important research directions in landscape aesthetics involve identification and explanation of these constraints and opportunities. The tripartite paradigm promises to be useful in helping to pose important research questions as well as in avoiding conceptual errors in the design of experiments in landscape aesthetics.

The empirical analysis of the effect of a view on residential property values with a very rich database of approximately 5000 sales in Auckland, New Zealand is provided. Results reveal that aesthetic externalities are multidimensional and can have a substantial impact on residential property values.

Using data for six metropolitan housing markets in three countries, this article provides a comparison of methods used to measure house price bubbles. We use an asset pricing approach to identify bubble periods retrospectively and then compare those results with results produced by six other methods. We also apply the various methods recursively to assess their ability to identify bubbles as they form. In view of the complexity of the asset pricing approach, we conclude that a simple price–rent ratio measure is a reliable method both ex post and in real time. Our results have important policy implications because a reliable signal that a bubble is forming could be used to avoid further house price increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]