Title: Identifying housing preferences in regulated markets: Evidence from waiting lists

Speaker: Zhiling Wang, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Time: Jan.4, 13:30 -15:00 (Beijing Time)

Venue: Room 106, Zhonghui Building

About the Speaker：

Zhiling Wang is an assistant professor in economics at Erasmus University Rotterdam. She obtained the Ph.D. degree from Department of Spatial Economics at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her main research fields are urban and regional economics, economic geography and labor migration. She has previously published in Journal of Regional Science, Spatial Economic Analysis and Annals of Regional Science. 

Abstract:

In many important markets, goods are not allocated based on the willingness to pay but based on other mechanisms such as waiting time. A prominent example is public housing, where rents are controlled. Using a dynamic framework with heterogeneous households and properties, we show that waiting time can be informative on housing preferences under standard assumptions pertaining to hedonic price analyses. Using micro-register data, we then measure preferences for new public housing projects. Our results show that particularly residents in public housing value those investments vis-à-vis residents in owner-occupied housing. Our results also highlight that ignoring benefits to public housing renters would substantially underestimate the total welfare effects of public housing investments.