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Hong Kong has one of the largest public housing programmes in the world, second to Singapore, with over 45% of the total population living in public housing. However, there are still a large number of people in need of housing assistance. A more efficient and equitable housing policy needs to be found. Public housing in Hong Kong is subsidized by the government mainly in the form of land, infrastructure, and low interest rates, but housing subsidy is not allocated to the most needy people. Some of the public housing is occupied by people who can take care of their own housing needs. Housing subsidies can be used more efficiently and equitably if these people are encouraged to move out of public housing or charged a more reasonable rent. The nature of horizontal and vertical inequity in housing subsidies in the public housing of Hong Kong is discussed and the effectiveness of some of the measures that have recently been used to tackle the problem of unfair housing subsidy is examined.

Der Erfinder der Riester-Rente wollte ursprünglich eine obligatorische Versicherung einführen. Dies wurde aber von den Medien "sabotiert". Damit scheiterte eine Pflichtversicherung auch politisch. Dargelegt wird, dass das Standardrentenniveau auch zehn Jahre nach der Einführung von Riester noch in etwa dem des Jahres 2000 entspricht. Ausgeführt wird zudem, dass bei Riester-Produkten für den Sparer keine zusätzlichen Kosten anfallen, dass Anbieter für die Lebenserwartung eine ausreichende Sicherheitsmarge kalkulieren müssen und dass die Riester-Sparer zeitweilig mit einer Quote von über 100 Prozent an den Überschüssen beteiligt wurden. Der Befund des DIW, dass die "Rendite für viele Sparer nicht besser sein wird, als wenn sie ihr Geld in einen Sparstrumpf gesteckt hätten", wird kritisiert. Der Erfahrung des Autors zufolge hat diese Aussage zu einer großen Verunsicherung bei Sparern und potentiellen Sparern geführt. Plädiert wird für eine individuelle, private und kapitalgedeckte Altersvorsorge für alle Bürger, die die gesetzliche umlagefinanzierte Rente ergänzt. Staatlich unterstütztes Sparen erfordert strikte Gesetzesauflagen für die Produkte und hohe Sicherheit. Befürwortet wird eine Evaluierung der Riester-Rente. Diese muss an den Zielen orientiert sein, die der Gesetzgeber für die staatlich geförderte Altersversorgung formuliert hat. ; The inventor of the Riester pension originally wanted it to be a compulsory insurance, but this was "sabotaged" by the media and, consequently, failed politically. Ten years after the implementation of the Riester pension, the standard pension level is still approximately what it was in 2000. Further, it will be explained that Riester products have no additional costs for savers; providers must calculate a sufficient security margin for the life expectancy of the savers, and that the insured persons were temporarily involved with a ratio of over 100 percent of the surplus. The DIW Berlin finding that the "return for many savers will be no better than if they had invested their money in a piggy bank" is criticized. The author finds that this statement has caused uncertainty for savers and potential savers. Further, the author advocates a private, individual and funded supplement for everybody in addition to the traditional pay-as-you-go pension scheme. Government-backed savings requires strict legal requirements for the products with high levels of safety. Further, an evaluation of the Riester pension is recommended, based on the objectives stated by the legislature.

Shortly before the 2011 Libyan revolution, consumers' subsidies were rapidly increased by the regime in an effort to reduce social discontent. In the aftermath of the revolution, these subsidies became important for people's subsistence, but also a very heavy burden for the state budget. Since then, the Libyan government has been confronted with the necessity of reforming subsidies in a politically and socially complex environment. This paper uses household survey data to provide a distributional analysis of food and energy subsidies and simulate the impact of subsidy reforms on household wellbeing, poverty, and the government's budget. Despite the focus on direct effects only, the results indicate that subsidy reforms would have a major impact on household welfare and government revenues. The elimination of food subsidies would reduce household expenditure by about 10 percent and double the poverty rate while saving the equivalent of about 2 percent of the government budget. The elimination of energy subsidies would have a similar effect on household welfare, but a larger effect on poverty while government savings would be almost 4 percent of the budget. The size of these effects, the weakness of market institutions, and the current political instability make subsidy reforms extremely complex in Libya. It is also clear that subsidy reforms will call for some form of compensation for the poor, a gradual rather than a big bang approach, and a product-by-product sequence of reforms rather than an all-inclusive reform.

Hong Kong Public Housing Program was initiated by a disastrous fire sixty years ago which made thousands people lose their shelter. Public rental housing (PRH) was built to provide affordable accommodation to people who are in housing need, such as the victims of disaster, low income families, etc. The financial situation of some PRH households had been improved after receiving years of housing subsidy by residing in PRH, which is heavily subsidized by the Government. They had affordability in finding a home in private sector, but they chose to stay in PRH and continued to receive housing subsidy, which they should not entitled. This phenomenon aroused widespread public concern in 1980s. After conducting public consultation in 1984-85, the Hong Kong Housing Authority (HKHA) finally implemented the Housing Subsidy Policy (HSP) in April 1987 to reduce the housing subsidy to those who are no longer in need of it. Under the HSP, tenants who have resided in public housing for 10 years or more are required to declare their household income. Households with income exceeding the Subsidy Income Limits (SIL) are required to pay double net rent plus rates. The policy was reviewed after implemented for five years. Responding to PRH's opinion on the policy, the policy was revised in 1993.Under the new measure, households with income between two to three times of the WLIL would be charged 1.5 times rent. Tenants, with income exceeds 3 times of the WLIL would have to pay double rent. Although HKHA did not adopted the method of eviction to force the well–off tenants to move out from the PRH, the ultimate aim of HSP was to vacate the flats resided by them. Instead of taking enforcement action, a moderate method of reducing subsidy and encouragement of home ownership was adopted to encourage well-off PRH tenants to surrender their PRH units, so that they can be re-allocated to the people who had genuine housing need. With a moderate approach, the effective of HSP has been reduced. The first part of this study would conduct an examination of the effectiveness of HSP. Effectiveness in achieving its aim and the policy outcomes would be the focus of this part. Public Housing is a scarce and limited social resource. A rational and equitable allocation of the PRH units is expected. The HSP is the first step for HKHA to take measure to rationalize the distribution of the existing heavily subsidized PRH units since the public housing program started in 1953. The later part of this study would evaluate the equity of the HSP based on some theorists' conception on equity. Recommendations would be made in conclusion to provide future policy directive on HSP. ; published_or_final_version ; Housing Management ; Master ; Master of Housing Management

Capital is required in farm to buy input such as fertilizer, pesticide, seed, land rent, labor wage, and to adopt the latest technology. To ease the burden of loan interest and to increase the access of farm to formal credit, the government provides interest subsidy for Food Security and Energy Credit (Kredit Ketahanan Pangan dan Energi, KKP-E). This study was aimed to analyze the impact of accessing KKP-E on paddy farms' performance. The methods used in this study are descriptive analysis and propensity score matching model. Accessibility of KKP-E in research location was able to increase fertilizer use of 16.98 percent, pesticide use of 40.23 percent, labor outside farm household use of 43.08 percent, production of 58 percent, productivity of 23.64 percent, and farm profit of 84.5 percent. This quite high increase in percentage was due to the reason that farm business scale in this study was categorized as small-scale business.

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the effects of marginal and general wage subsidies on employment and income distribution.Design/methodology/approachThe paper constructs a theoretical, partial‐equilibrium model of an economy in which a large number of competitive firms produce a homogeneous output good. Involuntary unemployment arises from a too high and rigid wage. By conducting comparative static analyses, the paper evaluates the impact of general and marginal wage subsidies on employment and incomes.FindingsThe paper shows that a marginal wage subsidy is a fiscally more efficient instrument for employment creation than a general wage subsidy because it resembles a combination of a general wage subsidy with a profit tax. These favorable effects persist even if between‐firm displacement effects are taken into account.Research limitations/implicationsIn line with most of the literature on marginal employment subsidies, attention is restricted to a partial‐equilibrium analysis in which the wage is assumed to be fixed. This helps to sharpen the focus on between‐firm competition, but is perhaps implausible when analyzing a general‐equilibrium setting. The inclusion of endogenous wage setting is bound to provide an interesting area for future research.Practical implicationsIf politicians want to implement a wage subsidy scheme that has to be self‐financing, marginal wage subsidies are an effective policy instrument for employment creation. Its downside is an inefficient allocation of labor among firms, because some firms become larger than is necessary.Originality/valueThe paper provides a novel approach to model the between‐firm displacement effects of marginal wage subsidies and derives policy conclusions.

Ninety-five percent of automobile commuters in the United States park free at work. To deal with the traffic congestion and air pollution caused by parking subsidies, California law now requires many employers to offer employees the option to cash out their parking subsidies. Similar Federal legislation has been proposed. This nationwide survey found that employers in the United States off employees 84.8 million free parking spaces. Employers own 65.3 million of these free parking spaces, and rent the other 19.5 million. Employers of fewer than twenty employees provide more than half of all employer-paid parking spaces.

Dokumentiert wird der Austausch über das Riester-Sparen, der auf dem Workshop des DIW Berlin stattfand. Teilnehmer dieser Veranstaltung waren Wissenschaftler sowie Vertreter aus Wirtschaft und Politik. Die Gespräche fanden entlang von Vorträgen statt. Kontrovers diskutiert wurde über die Förderung, über Auswirkungen der Freiwilligkeit und eines Obligatoriums der privaten Altersvorsorge, über die Akzeptanz des Riester-Sparens unter Geringverdienern, die Transparenz, Kalkulation und Rendite der Riester- Produkte, über Erfolgsmessung und Vorschläge für Veränderungen des Riester-Sparens. Die Dokumentation schließt mit einer Agenda über das Riester-Sparen. ; The article documents the discussion of a workshop on the Riester saving which took place at DIW Berlin. Workshop participants included scientists, consumer advocates, representatives from the financial services industry, and politicians. The workshop addressed a number of controversial topics, including: Riester subsidy; the effects of an optional and mandatory private old-age provision; the participation of low wage earners; the transparency, calculation and yield of Riester products, as well as how to measure the success of, and suggestion for changes to, the Riester saving. The documentation concludes with an agenda on Riester saving.

We study how industry-level agglomeration economies affect government policy. Using administrative data on firm subsidies in economically lagging regions of Great Britain, we contrast two alternative hypotheses. Economic geography models imply that firms at an industry's core can sustain higher tax burdens or require lower subsidies than firms in more remote locations. Conversely, political economy models predict firms at the industry's core to be more successful at lobbying government, particularly at the subnational level, thus obtaining more favourable fiscal treatment. Our evidence suggests that local government agencies structure subsidy offers to favour pre-existing employment in locally agglomerated industries, behaviour more in line with theories of policy capture than with economic geography models. Grants administered by central government agencies, however, conform more strongly with the predictions of economic geography models.

The objective of this paper is to explain the mechanisms that have lead to the remarkable improvement of the East German Housing Market during transition after the political change in 1989 and the reunification of Germany in 1990. Theoretical analysis suggests, that housing policy of the former GDR did not maximize consumer`s utility. Socialistic housing and construction policy limited the welfare with and distorted construction costs and rent control. The reason for that was not alone a lack of quantity but also a lack of quality and diversity. Therefore we argue that diversification of quality and te-nure in the post communist era enhanced the welfare of consumers. We propose that welfare on the East German Housing market was significantly increased by creating a new variety of housing types and qualities which fits better with different preferences of the households. A filtering model predicts theoretically the observable trends of seg-mentation and the development of a higher diversity of housing market segments. But additionally to the transition a bunch of subsidies were set up during transition. There-fore the paper is focused on the interdependency between housing market subsidies, the supply cost function, the qualitative development of the housing stock and the choice of demand. Empirically we observe the change and qualitative improvement of housing conditions in East Germany during transition and quantitative effects like increased vacancy risk in a shifted hierarchy of housing qualities.

Farm subsidies in the U.S. were introduced during the 1930's as ''a temporary solution to deal with an emergency'', referring to the downward-spiraling farm incomes that afflicted the 25% of U.S. population living on farms. Yet, currently less than 1% of the U.S. population is employed in farms and those farmers' household incomes are well above the national average. This paper employs basic cost-benefit economic analysis and shows that the biggest farm subsidy programs currently active serve as income-transfer channels always leading to a loss of national welfare. Thus it motivates the discussion on why these inefficient and regressive policy measures still persist in a democratic and affluent county such as the U.S., especially at annual direct costs of $25 billion. Insights from the political economy models by Swinnen (1994), Grossman and Helpman (2004), Gawande and Hoekman (2006), Park and Jensen (2007), and Thies and Porche (2007), strongly suggest such that perverse policy behavior can be actually rationalized on the basis of the current institutional framework in the U.S. Specific characteristics of this framework are examined in relation to the voter, the political agent, and special-interest groups, in order to shed some light on how they define the possible circuits inside the policy-making process and ultimately, the policy outcome. Projecting forward into the future, the static nature of these institutional factors in combination with the opportunities for rent-seeking that they facilitate makes the prospects for policy reform in the U.S. seem highly unlikely.

After independence, energy and food subsidies became a cornerstone of the social contracts in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries. Governments spent heavily to reduce poverty and strengthen their own legitimacy. However, as government rents faded, subsidy spending became financially unsustainable and foreign donors pressed for reforms. Yet, reform has been challenging for all the governments as subsidies affect all consumers, therefore raising the risk of government delegitimisation. Several publications have analysed the subsidy reforms of various MENA countries, but few have systematically analysed their impacts on the prevailing social contracts. This paper shows that reforms in a key policy field such as subsidy spending can affect the nature of social contracts profoundly and distinctly, depending on the reform strategy. It assesses the reform processes that took place in Morocco, Egypt and Iran primarily between 2010 and 2017, thus before the United States once more tightened sanctions against Iran and before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. We argue that governments applied distinct strategies to reduce subsidy spending without provoking major social unrest to reforms, with the effect that the social contracts of the three countries changed in quite different ways. Morocco's government removed most subsidies, especially those that predominantly benefitted the middle-class. [.]

HOW DO PEOPLE'S IDEAS ABOUT REDISTRIBUTION AND STATE welfare affect their political judgments? The issue is of interest for practical and theoretical reasons. A party which presents egalitarian redistribution as a central social-policy objective has been replaced in government by one which does not. Various writers suggest that a lack of popular support for redistribution contributed to this change, whether because the experience of economic decline undermines altruism; because there is an anti-welfare backlash at the level of ideology; or because the least redistributive welfare services benefit the better-off groups who are also more influential .Thus free sixth-form and university education, mortgage interest relief and occupational pension subsidy are favoured, whereas rent subsidy, low wage supplementation and unemployment benefit are not. Underlying these arguments is the suggestion that welfare programmes, to the extent that they are seen to contradict popular desires, will contribute to a generalized decline in support for government.

Existing government policies and programmes promote the redevelopment of single sex public hostels to provide family units as a sustainable form of housing for the poor in South Africa. A survey was carried out among residents of Sethokga hostel in preparation of a pilot conversion project with funding via the Institutional Housing Subsidy. The survey revealed that low pay and high unemployment contributed to real fears among residents about their ability to afford rent for the upgraded accommodation, and the possibility of displacement, and even eviction as a result. The expressed need therefore, appeared to be for flexible funding arrangements that allow for affordable accommodation options not limited to family units, ranging from single rooms to apartments for sub letting and sharing, an option which would not be possible with the use of the Institutional Housing Subsidy as the sole funding instrument.

Shifts in international investment markets, Australia's demographic profile and 'residential consumer' sentiment have recently combined to enhance the prospects for the emergence of a 'mainstream market' Build-to-Rent (BtR) sector. Antecedents include the corresponding US and UK sectors, of which Australian stakeholders are increasingly aware; Australian commercial property sectors, in which international investors are increasingly active; and forerunners such as Meriton's rental business and purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA). PBSA has already generated over 90,000 newly-built units in Australia's cities over the past 10-15 years.Pipeline BtR projects may presage the emergence of a significant new component within Australia's housing market. Under current Australian housing market conditions and policy settings, however, it remains difficult to envisage any rapid BtR take-off of the kind seen in the UK in recent years, or the establishment of a large and highly embedded purpose-built-for-market-rental industry as in the USA. Although Australian BtR project returns are impaired by both market conditions and policy settings, the industry tends to focus on the latter; highlighting land tax, GST and income tax as it affects overseas investors utilising Managed Investment Trust (MIT) vehicles. Of these policy levers, evidence suggests that the single most significant impact on BtR returns would arise through re-balancing state/territory government land taxes to incentivise purpose-built professionally managed rental (as opposed to small-scale letting of existing properties).Except where supported by some form of public subsidy or under rezoning, BtR will not generate affordable housing. Nor will it significantly ease wider housing affordability. However, it has the potential to fulfil other important public policy goals – including widened housing diversity, higher construction and management standards and a more secure form of private rental housing. It could also beneficially introduce a counter-cyclical economic component into the otherwise volatile residential construction industry. Therefore, a legitimate case can be made for facilitating the establishment and expansion of a BtR sector in Australia. To fulfil the widely-held aspiration for an affordable component within primarily market rental developments, however, additional government support will be essential, such as discounted land grants to Community Housing Providers (CHPs). Without a strategic national framework that integrates tax reform, revenue support, land and planning levers, an emergent BtR sector will fail to generate rental at scale. In this regard Australia will continue to lag comparable countries like US and UK.