scholarly journals Local Housing Market Dynamics Predict Rapid Shifts in Cultural Openness: A Nine-Year Study across 199 Cities

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Friedrich Martin Götz ◽  
Tobias Ebert ◽  
Samuel D. Gosling ◽  
Martin Obschonka ◽  
Jason Rentfrow

Accumulating evidence suggests that culture changes in response to shifting socioecological conditions; economic development is a particularly potent driver of such change. Previous re-search has shown that economic development can induce slow but steady cultural changes within large cultural entities (e.g., countries). Here we propose that economically driven culture change can occur rapidly, particularly in smaller cultural entities (e.g., cites). Drawing on work in cultural dynamics, urban economics, and geographical psychology, we hypothesize that changes in local housing prices – reflecting changing availability of local amenities – can induce rapid shifts in local cultures of Openness. We propose two mechanisms that might underlie such cultural shifts: selective migration (i.e., people selectively moving to cities that offer certain amenities) and social acculturation (i.e., people adapting to changing amenities in their city). Based on trait Openness scores of 1,946,752 U.S. residents, we track annual changes in local Openness across 199 cities for nine years (2006-2014). We link these data to annual infor-mation on local housing markets, an established proxy for local amenities. To test interdepend-encies between the time series of local housing markets and Openness, we use Panel Vector Autoregression modelling. In line with our hypothesis, we find robust evidence that rising housing costs predict positive shifts in local Openness but not vice versa. Additional analyses leveraging participants’ duration of residence in their city suggest that both selective migration and social acculturation contribute to shifts in local Openness. Our study thus offers a new window onto the rapid changes of cultures at local levels.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 6808
Author(s):  
Yuxi Luo ◽  
Zhaohua Zhang ◽  
Jun Zheng ◽  
Diane Hite

Place-based policies refer to government efforts to enhance the economic performance of an area within its jurisdiction. Applying various difference in differences strategies, this study evaluates the neighborhood effects of a place-based policy—the Economic Development Priority Areas (EDPA) of Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Since the census block groups are locally defined and the boundaries may change over time, we defined the neighborhoods by creating a set of 0.25-mile- diameter circles evenly distributed across Atlanta, and used the created buffers as the comparison unit. The empirical estimates showed that EDPA designation significantly reduced poverty rate and increased housing price of EDPA neighborhoods but had no beneficial effects on population size and employment rate. The heterogeneous analysis with respect to different initial economic status of the neighborhoods showed a relative larger and significant effect of EDPA designation on low-income neighborhoods. The increasing labor demand induced by EDPA designation in low-income neighborhoods attracted more population to migrate in and put upward pressure on housing prices. The estimation results are robust when replacing the 0.25-mile-diameter circle neighborhoods with 0.5-mile-diameter circle neighborhoods. Although we found some positive effects of the EDPA program in Atlanta, it would be misguided to assume similar effects occur in other areas implementing place-based policies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Agusma Putri Wardani ◽  
Bevaola Kusumasari

The eruption of Mount Merapi in 2010 was one of the largest volcanic eruptions in Indonesian history. The catastrophic event resulted in fatalities, loss of homes and livelihoods, infrastructure damage, and trauma for residents. There also a shift in community dynamics. The purpose of this study is to analyse and understand the formation of resilient communities by examining the shift in the society dynamics, specifically socio-cultural changes in community-based interventions. The study is a case study of Pangukrejo Hamlet in Sleman, Indonesia. Study results showed that in the aftermath of the eruption, the community experienced changes in degree of harmony and mutual respect among members. The study identified community economy dynamics, which are attributable to three interventions. Study results formed the basis for drawing policy implications for public awareness of disaster risk and post-disaster recovery in general.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Páll Tómas Finnsson

The Nordic Economic Policy Review (NEPR) is an annual publication presenting some of the latest and cutting-edge research into selected topics of economic policy. This year’s edition dives into the Nordic housing markets, examining some of the key policy mechanisms behind the rapidly rising housing prices, as well as the impacts on social welfare and social and ethnic segregation. The theme is selected by the NEPR steering group, which consists of representatives from the Nordic Ministries of Finance, Nordregio, and the NEPR editor. This publication provides a short summary of the five NEPR 2021 articles, which seek to answer the following questions: André Anundsen: What is the prevalence of house price bubbles in the Nordics? Erlend Eide Bø: Do buy-to-let investments lead to higher housing prices? Mats Bergman and Sten Nyberg: What explains the large increase in the relative cost of construction? Niku Määttänen: How can housing taxation improve social welfare? Essi Eerola: How do Nordic housing policies affect affordability and integration?


2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 173-199
Author(s):  
Siân Butcher

As the housing bubble burst in overheated property markets around the world, South Africa’s so-called ‘affordable housing market’ appeared to be bucking the trend. From 2010, affordable housing prices were rising and selling quickly, especially in Gauteng, Johannesburg’s city-region, chronically short of actually affordable housing and with a growing black middle class. Touted as ‘SA’s best-kept investment secret’, the affordable housing market offered a lifeline to the property industry and the potential to democratize segregated property markets. Yet, in practice, the tapping of South Africa’s lower-income housing market by capital has been a limited one, narrowly catering to particular subjects and spaces. Drawing on heterodox approaches to ‘actually existing markets’ and qualitative fieldwork conducted in Johannesburg between 2012 and 2013, this paper traces how the boundaries of the affordable housing and mortgage submarket are produced and shift through the investments of multiple communities with their own theories of housing markets and different interests in ‘making the market work’. Despite these investments and contestations, the submarket is narrowly territorialized within developer-driven housing largely in Gauteng for public-sector workers, to optimize the market within mortgage capital’s frameworks of risk, return, race and space. The South African mortgaged affordable housing submarket is not so much in need of market information or constitutive of a new frontier of global finance, as a territorial fix for domestic capital vis-à-vis development imperatives. To investigate struggles over this submarket, I draw together socio-institutional approaches to markets with critical political economy of housing markets and put them into conversation with critical development studies scholarship on markets. This combination allows us to make space for multiple projects of ‘improvement’ and profit in our analyses of market-making, as well as how these are shaped by, and shape, space and conjuncture. I seek to contribute to a growing literature on the geographies of markets from a Global South context where housing is framed as both a market good and constitutional right by examining a case of apparent ‘market failure’.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 754-770 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cássio da Nóbrega Besarria ◽  
Nelson Leitão Paes ◽  
Marcelo Eduardo Alves Silva

Purpose Housing prices in Brazil have displayed an impressive growth in recent years, raising some concerns about the existence of a bubble in housing markets. In this paper, the authors implement an empirical methodology to identify whether or not there is a bubble in housing markets in Brazil. Design/methodology/approach Based on a theoretical model that establish that, in the absence of a bubble, a long-run equilibrium relationship should be observed between the market price of an asset and its dividends. The authors implement two methodologies. First, the authors assess whether there is a cointegration relationship between housing prices and housing rental prices. Second, the authors test whether the price-to-rent ratio is stationary. Findings The authors’ results show that there is evidence of a bubble in housing prices in Brazil. However, given the short span of the data, the authors perform a Monte Carlo simulation and show that the cointegration tests may be biased in small samples. Therefore, the authors should be caution when assessing the results. Research limitations/implications The results obtained from the cointegration analysis can be biased for small samples. Practical implications The information on the excessive increase of the prices of the properties in relation to their fundamental value can help in the decision-making on investment of the economic agents. Social implications These results corroborate the hypothesis that Brazil has an excessive appreciation in housing prices, and, as Silva and Besarria (2018) have suggested, this behavior explains, in part, the fact that the central bank has taken this issue into account when deciding about the stance of monetary policy of Brazil. Originality/value The originality is linked to the use of the Gregory-Hansen method of cointegration in the identification of bubbles and discussion of the limitations of the research through Monte Carlo simulation.


Author(s):  
Yuji Ogihara

This chapter discusses the relationship between economic affluence and individualism from a cross-temporal perspective. Previous research has indicated that wealth and individualism are positively correlated at both the individual and the national level. This chapter discusses whether this relationship is also found at the temporal level. This chapter consists of three parts. First, a theory about the association between economic affluence and individualism is summarized. Second, the chapter introduces empirical evidence on temporal changes in individualism and their relationship with economic development in three cultures (United States, Japan, China). These studies indicated that the three cultures have shifted toward greater individualism over time. Moreover, these changes in individualism were positively linked to increases in economic affluence at the annual level. Third, the chapter is summarized and directions for future research are raised. Overall, this chapter discusses how socioecological factors and human psychologies/behaviors are associated particularly from a cross-temporal perspective.


2019 ◽  
Vol 113 (2) ◽  
pp. 499-516 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARTIN VINÆS LARSEN ◽  
FREDERIK HJORTH ◽  
PETER THISTED DINESEN ◽  
KIM MANNEMAR SØNDERSKOV

Recent studies of economic voting have focused on the role of the local economy, but with inconclusive results. We argue that while local economic conditions affect incumbent support on average, the importance of the local economy varies by citizens’ interactions with it. More recent and frequent encounters with aspects of the local economy make those aspects more salient and, in turn, feature more prominently in evaluations of the incumbent government. We label this process “context priming.” We provide evidence for these propositions by studying local housing markets. Linking granularly detailed data on housing prices from Danish public registries to both precinct-level election returns and an individual-level panel survey, we find that when individuals interact with the housing market, their support for the incumbent government is more responsive to changes in local housing prices. The study thus provides a framework for understanding when citizens respond politically to the local economy.


2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 188-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roula Inglesi-Lotz ◽  
Rangan Gupta

This paper investigates whether house prices provide a suitable hedge against inflation in South Africa by analysing the long-run relationship between house prices and the prices of non-housing goods and services. Quarterly data series are collected for the luxury, large middle-segment, medium middle-segment, small middle-segment and the entire middle segment of house prices, as well as, the consumer price index excluding housing costs for the period 1970:Q1–2011:Q1. Based on autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) models, the empirical results indicate long-run cointegration between the house prices of all the segments and the consumer price index excluding housing costs. Moreover, the long-run elasticity of house prices with respect to prices of non-housing goods and services, i.e., the Fisher coefficient is greater than one for the luxury segment, virtually equal to one for the small middle-segment, and less than one for the large and medium middle-segments, as well as the affordable segments. More importantly though, the estimated Fisher coefficients are not statistically different from unity – a result consistent with the proposed theoretical framework relating housing prices and consumer prices excluding housing expenditure. In general, we infer that house prices in South Africa provide a stable inflation hedge in the long-run.


Author(s):  
Juan Carmona ◽  
Markus Lampe ◽  
Joan R. Rosés

ABSTRACTThis article makes the first systematic attempt to analyse quantitatively the evolution of Spanish housing markets from 1904 to 1934, a period of dramatic changes in housing demand as a consequence of substantial income and demographic growth. In order to do so, we collect a new database on houses sold and their prices using data from the Registrar's Yearbooks. Furthermore, we construct a new hedonic index of real housing prices for Spain and its provinces. To our surprise, we found that real housing prices rose slightly over the entire period and, hence, that housing supply responded effectively to new demand for housing.


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