IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/juecon/v136y2023ics0094119023000414.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

JUE Insight: The Effect of Relaxing Local Housing Market Regulations on Federal Rental Assistance Programs

Author

Listed:
  • Corinth, Kevin
  • Irvine, Amelia

Abstract

The majority of U.S. households that qualify for federal rental housing assistance do not receive it. In the absence of an entitlement to housing assistance, an underexplored cause of the shortfall is that higher rents in some areas driven by supply-constraining local regulations increase program costs, leaving fewer funds available to serve additional families. In this paper, we simulate the effect of increasing housing supply on the cost of Section 8 housing assistance programs in Los Angeles, as well as all 11 metropolitan areas most constrained by local regulations. If Los Angeles (all 11 metropolitan areas) produced new housing units at the same rate as the 90th percentile metropolitan area for a decade, market rents would fall by 18.1 percent (2.0 to 24.0 percent), and federal cost savings would equal $353 million ($1.8 billion), enough to increase the number of assisted families by 23.8 percent (18.6 percent). For comparison, doubling the number of units placed in service through the Low Income Housing Tax Credit for a decade—an alternative method for increasing housing supply—would lead to much lower cost savings of $18 million in Los Angeles, and $231 million across all 11 metropolitan areas.

Suggested Citation

  • Corinth, Kevin & Irvine, Amelia, 2023. "JUE Insight: The Effect of Relaxing Local Housing Market Regulations on Federal Rental Assistance Programs," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:juecon:v:136:y:2023:i:c:s0094119023000414
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jue.2023.103572
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094119023000414
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jue.2023.103572?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Enrico Moretti, 2019. "Housing Constraints and Spatial Misallocation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 1-39, April.
    2. Glaeser, Edward L. & Ward, Bryce A., 2009. "The causes and consequences of land use regulation: Evidence from Greater Boston," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 265-278, May.
    3. Albert Saiz, 2010. "The Geographic Determinants of Housing Supply," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(3), pages 1253-1296.
    4. Albouy, David & Ehrlich, Gabriel, 2018. "Housing productivity and the social cost of land-use restrictions," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 101-120.
    5. Ganong, Peter & Shoag, Daniel, 2017. "Why has regional income convergence in the U.S. declined?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 76-90.
    6. Edward Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko, 2018. "The Economic Implications of Housing Supply," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(1), pages 3-30, Winter.
    7. Glaeser, Edward L & Gyourko, Joseph & Saks, Raven, 2005. "Why Is Manhattan So Expensive? Regulation and the Rise in Housing Prices," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(2), pages 331-369, October.
    8. David Albouy & Gabriel Ehrlich & Yingyi Liu, 2016. "Housing Demand, Cost-of-Living Inequality, and the Affordability Crisis," NBER Working Papers 22816, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Polinsky, A Mitchell & Ellwood, David T, 1979. "An Empirical Reconciliation of Micro and Grouped Estimates of the Demand for Housing," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 61(2), pages 199-205, May.
    10. Baum-Snow, Nathaniel & Marion, Justin, 2009. "The effects of low income housing tax credit developments on neighborhoods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(5-6), pages 654-666, June.
    11. John M. Quigley & Steven Raphael, 2005. "Regulation and the High Cost of Housing in California," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 323-328, May.
    12. Edgar O. Olsen, 2003. "Housing Programs for Low-Income Households," NBER Chapters, in: Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, pages 365-442, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren & Lawrence F. Katz, 2016. "The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children: New Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(4), pages 855-902, April.
    14. Michael D. Eriksen & Amanda Ross, 2015. "Housing Vouchers and the Price of Rental Housing," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 154-176, August.
    15. Robert Collinson & Peter Ganong, 2018. "How Do Changes in Housing Voucher Design Affect Rent and Neighborhood Quality?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 62-89, May.
    16. Stuart S. Rosenthal, 2014. "Are Private Markets and Filtering a Viable Source of Low-Income Housing? Estimates from a "Repeat Income" Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(2), pages 687-706, February.
    17. Glaeser, Edward L. & Gyourko, Joseph & Morales, Eduardo & Nathanson, Charles G., 2014. "Housing dynamics: An urban approach," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 45-56.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Howard, Greg & Liebersohn, Jack, 2021. "Why is the rent so darn high? The role of growing demand to live in housing-supply-inelastic cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    2. Christian A. L. Hilber & Olivier Schoni, 2022. "Housing policy and affordable housing," CEP Occasional Papers 56, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    3. Mense, Andreas, 2020. "The Impact of New Housing Supply on the Distribution of Rents," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224569, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    4. Molloy, Raven & Nathanson, Charles G. & Paciorek, Andrew, 2022. "Housing supply and affordability: Evidence from rents, housing consumption and household location," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    5. Corinth, Kevin & Dante, Hugo, 2022. "The Understated ‘Housing Shortage’ in the United States," IZA Discussion Papers 15447, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Sebastian Eichhorn & David Pehlke, 2022. "Unintended effects of regional planning in Germany," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(2), pages 933-950, June.
    7. Evan Mast, 2019. "The Effect of New Market-Rate Housing Construction on the Low-Income Housing Market," Upjohn Working Papers 19-307, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    8. Lin, Chuanhao, 2024. "Do households value lower density: Theory, evidence, and implications from Washington, DC," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    9. Clémence Tricaud, 2019. "Better alone? Evidence on the costs of intermunicipal cooperation," Economics Working Paper from Condorcet Center for political Economy at CREM-CNRS 2019-12-ccr, Condorcet Center for political Economy.
    10. William N. Evans & David C. Phillips & Krista Ruffini, 2021. "Policies To Reduce And Prevent Homelessness: What We Know And Gaps In The Research," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(3), pages 914-963, June.
    11. Knut Are Aastveit & Bruno Albuquerque & André K. Anundsen, 2023. "Changing Supply Elasticities and Regional Housing Booms," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 55(7), pages 1749-1783, October.
    12. Brian Asquith & Evan Mast & Davin Reed, 2019. "Supply Shock Versus Demand Shock: The Local Effects of New Housing in Low-Income Areas," Upjohn Working Papers 19-316, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    13. Xi Yang, 2021. "Land-Use Regulations and Urban Growth of African Americans," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 35(4), pages 338-350, November.
    14. Parkhomenko, Andrii, 2023. "Local causes and aggregate implications of land use regulation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    15. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Michael Storper, 2020. "Housing, urban growth and inequalities: The limits to deregulation and upzoning in reducing economic and spatial inequality," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(2), pages 223-248, February.
    16. Larson, William & Yezer, Anthony & Zhao, Weihua, 2022. "Urban planning policies and the cost of living in large cities," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    17. Molloy, Raven, 2020. "The effect of housing supply regulation on housing affordability: A review," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    18. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Enrico Moretti, 2019. "Housing Constraints and Spatial Misallocation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 1-39, April.
    19. Rosenthal, Stuart S. & Ross, Stephen L., 2015. "Change and Persistence in the Economic Status of Neighborhoods and Cities," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 1047-1120, Elsevier.
    20. Divya Singh, 2020. "Do Property Tax Incentives for New Construction Spur Gentrification? Evidence from New York City," 2020 Papers psi856, Job Market Papers.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:juecon:v:136:y:2023:i:c:s0094119023000414. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622905 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.