IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envirc/v23y2005i5p759-783.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Direct Subsidies and Housing Affordability in Australian Private Rental Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Gavin A Wood

    (AHURI-RMIT/NATSEM Research Centre, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia)

  • Matthew Forbes

    (Productivity Commission, Level 28, 35 Collins Street, Melbourne, VIC 8003, Australia)

  • Kenneth Gibb

    (Department of Urban Studies, University of Glasgow, 25-29 Bute Gardens, Glasgow G12 8RS, Scotland)

Abstract

Many countries have undergone a broad retreat from the use of indirect (supply) subsidies to meet low-income housing-affordability problems, shifting to direct subsidies often linked to means-tested income-maintenance systems. Although the reasons for this change of direction are well documented, the efficacy of direct housing subsidies in terms of tackling affordability remains in question. The authors examine in detail one such system, Australia's Rent Assistance (RA) programme, making use of a microsimulation model of the Australian housing market linked to a model of the social security system. It is found that there is considerable targeting error because many low-income renters are ineligible for direct subsidies. It is also found that RA is relatively ineffective in overcoming affordability problems in high housing cost areas of Australia. Although RA does not of itself contribute much to poverty-trap problems, it may deter unemployed households from moving to areas where job vacancies exist. The authors conclude that future comparative work could usefully analyse the distributional and behavioural impacts of different forms of housing allowances. Moreover, alternative policies could be recalibrated within the microsimulation model in order to examine the first-round impacts of policy design change.

Suggested Citation

  • Gavin A Wood & Matthew Forbes & Kenneth Gibb, 2005. "Direct Subsidies and Housing Affordability in Australian Private Rental Markets," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 23(5), pages 759-783, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:23:y:2005:i:5:p:759-783
    DOI: 10.1068/c0445
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/c0445
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/c0445?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Productivity Commission, 2004. "First Home Ownership," Others 0410007, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Simon Feeny & Rachel Ong & Heath Spong & Gavin Wood, 2012. "The Impact of Housing Assistance on the Employment Outcomes of Labour Market Programme Participants in Australia," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(4), pages 821-844, March.

    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. James Bugden & Robert Waschik & Iain Fraser & Jeffrey S. Racine, 2016. "Parametric and non-parametric analysis of tax changes," Global Business and Economics Review, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 18(5), pages 533-549.
    2. Mike Berry & Jon Hall, 2005. "Institutional Investment in Rental Housing in Australia: A Policy Framework and Two Models," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 42(1), pages 91-111, January.
    3. Andrew Beer & Rebecca Bentley & Emma Baker & Kate Mason & Shelley Mallett & Anne Kavanagh & Tony LaMontagne, 2016. "Neoliberalism, economic restructuring and policy change: Precarious housing and precarious employment in Australia," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(8), pages 1542-1558, June.
    4. George Fane & Martin Richardson, 2004. "Negative Gearing Redux," Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics, vol. 11(3), pages 211-222.
    5. Peter Phibbs & Nicole Gurran, 2021. "The role and significance of planning in the determination of house prices in Australia: Recent policy debates," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(3), pages 457-479, May.
    6. George Fane & Martin Richardson, 2005. "Negative Gearing and the Taxation of Capital Gains in Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 81(254), pages 249-261, September.
    7. Rachel Ong & Gavin Wood & Siobhan Austen & Therese Jefferson & Marietta E.A. Haffner, 2014. "Housing Equity Withdrawal in Mid-To-Late Life: Patterns and Motivations Amongst Australian Home Owners," Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre Working Paper series WP1406, Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School.
    8. Arthur Grimes & Mark Holmes, 2010. "New Zealand Housing Markets: Just a Bit-Player in the A-League?," Working Papers 10_07, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    9. Luc Borrowman & Gennadi Kazakevitch & Lionel Frost, 2017. "How long do households remain in housing affordability stress?," Housing Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(7), pages 869-886, October.
    10. Alan Moran, 2007. "Land Regulations, Housing Prices and Productivity," Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics, vol. 14(1), pages 35-50.
    11. Murray, Cameron & Phibbs, Peter, 2022. "Evidence-lite zone: The weak evidence behind the economic case against planning regulation," OSF Preprints 69m23, Center for Open Science.
    12. Arthur Grimes & Suzi Kerr & Andrew Aitken, 2004. "Bi-Directions Impacts of Economic, Social and Environmental Changes and the New Zealand Housing Market," Working Papers 04_09, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    13. Richard Eccleston, 2008. "Righting Australia’s Vertical Fiscal Imbalance: Transferring Public Hospital Funding as an Option for Reform," Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics, vol. 15(3), pages 39-54.
    14. Atalay, Kadir & Whelan, Stephen & Yates, Judith, 2013. "Housing Wealth and Household Consumption: New Evidence from Australia and Canada," Working Papers 2013-04, University of Sydney, School of Economics.
    15. Productivity Commission, 2007. "Performance Benchmarking of Australian Business Regulation," Research Reports, Productivity Commission, Government of Australia, number 23.
    16. Nicole Gurran & Peter Phibbs, 2015. "Are Governments Really Interested in Fixing the Housing Problem? Policy Capture and Busy Work in Australia," Housing Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(5), pages 711-729, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:sae:envirc:v:23:y:2005:i:5:p:759-783. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.