IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v39y2002i2p201-217.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reducing Housing Subsidy: Swedish Housing Policy in an International Context

Author

Listed:
  • Bengt Turner

    (Institute for Housing Research, Uppsala University, Box 785, 80129 Gävle, Sweden, Bengt Turner@IBF.UU.SE)

  • Christine M. E. Whitehead

    (Department of Economics, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE, UK, c.m.e.whitehead@lse.ac.uk)

Abstract

Swedish housing policy was dramatically changed during the 1990s. A traditional formally tenure-neutral and generous subsidy system has been replaced by much lower levels of assistance, more directed at lower-income households and depressed areas. This paper sets the Swedish policy in an international context as part of a much more general pattern of reduced and rebalanced expenditures associated with liberalisation and the transfer of risk. The paper then addresses the direct and indirect impacts of the Swedish 'grand restructuring', concentrating on the extent of the cutbacks; rents and prices; levels of output; and the potential for increased segregation. The evidence suggests that the policy changes, together with their effect on expectations, significantly modified the housing system. They reduced demand for new building, particularly in less-pressured areas; increased vacancies, especially in the social sector; transferred risk to both the social and private sectors; and increased outcome differentials between the well-off and those with fewer resources—both in terms of individuals and areas. The analysis presented here provides evidence against which the Swedish policy can begin to be evaluated. It also suggests lessons for other industrialised economies that are addressing similar issues.

Suggested Citation

  • Bengt Turner & Christine M. E. Whitehead, 2002. "Reducing Housing Subsidy: Swedish Housing Policy in an International Context," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 39(2), pages 201-217, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:39:y:2002:i:2:p:201-217
    DOI: 10.1080/00420980120102920
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/00420980120102920
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00420980120102920?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. Englund, P. & Hendershott, P.H. & Turner, B., 1995. "The Tax Reform and the Housing Market," Papers 20, Uppsala - Working Paper Series.
    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. Sukumar Ganapati, 2010. "Enabling Housing Cooperatives: Policy Lessons from Sweden, India and the United States," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(2), pages 365-380, June.
    2. Mikaela Backman, 2014. "Returns to Education across the Urban-Rural Hierarchy," The Review of Regional Studies, Southern Regional Science Association, vol. 44(1), pages 33-59, Spring.
    3. Desiree Fields, 2017. "Unwilling Subjects of Financialization," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(4), pages 588-603, July.

    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. Lennart Berg, 2002. "Prices on the second-hand market for Swedish family houses: correlation, causation and determinants," European Journal of Housing Policy, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 2(1), pages 1-24.
    2. Englund, Peter & Quigley, John M. & Redfearn, Christian L., 1998. "Improved Price Indexes for Real Estate: Measuring the Course of Swedish Housing Prices," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 171-196, September.
    3. Berg, Lennart, 2001. "Prices and Constant Quality Price Indexes for Multi-Dwelling and Commercial Buildings in Sweden," Working Paper Series 2002:2, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    4. Wolswijk, Guido, 2005. "On some fiscal effects on mortgage debt growth in the EU," Working Paper Series 526, European Central Bank.
    5. Agell, Jonas & Englund, Peter & Sodersten, Jan, 1996. "Tax Reform of the Century -- the Swedish Experiment," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 49(4), pages 643-664, December.
    6. Oikarinen, Elias, 2009. "Household borrowing and metropolitan housing price dynamics - Empirical evidence from Helsinki," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 126-139, June.
    7. Enström Öst, Cecilia & Wilhelmsson, Mats, 2019. "The long-term consequences of youth housing for childbearing and higher education," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 41(5), pages 845-858.
    8. Cecilia Enström Öst, 2012. "Parental Wealth and First-time Homeownership: A Cohort Study of Family Background and Young Adults’ Housing Situation in Sweden," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(10), pages 2137-2152, August.
    9. Oikarinen, Elias, 2012. "Empirical evidence on the reaction speeds of housing prices and sales to demand shocks," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 41-54.
    10. Barot, Bharat & Takala, Kari, 1998. "House prices and inflation: a cointegration analysis for Finland and Sweden," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 12/1998, Bank of Finland.
    11. Elias Oikarinen, 2008. "Empirical application of the housing-market no-arbitrage condition: problems, solutions and a Finnish case study," Discussion Papers 39, Aboa Centre for Economics.
    12. Peter Englund, 2003. "Taxing Residential Housing Capital," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 40(5-6), pages 937-952, May.
    13. Ms. Rima A Turk, 2015. "Housing Price and Household Debt Interactions in Sweden," IMF Working Papers 2015/276, International Monetary Fund.
    14. Yang, Zan & Wang, S.T., 2012. "Permanent and transitory shocks in owner-occupied housing: A common trend model of price dynamics," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 336-346.

    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:urbstu:v:39:y:2002:i:2:p:201-217. 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: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    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.