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Store: An Independent Institute Book
Co-Publisher: Transaction Publishers
27 Figures
© 2009 |
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HOUSING AMERICA
Building Out of a Crisis
Edited by
Randall G. Holcombe, Benjamin Powell
About seventy percent of American households own their own homes, and for many their homes represent the majority of their net worth. As evident by the cascading mortgage market meltdown and widespread defaults and financial bankruptcies, housing policy not only affects the quality of community life but also has a direct impact on their economic well-being of entire nations.
Although most housing in the United States is allocated in the private market, this market is heavily regulated and subsidized, with government policies dictating whether people can build, what type of housing is allowed, the terms allowed in financing and rental contracts, and much more. Involving the work of sixteen economists and policy experts, Housing America now critically examines government housing policies in the United States and how they impact housing at all levels.
Could government's pervasive involvement in housing be related to the very real problems of affordability, availability, mortgage defaults and loans, and much more? If so, the appropriate policy response would be to significantly reduce, not increase, government involvement. In reassessing government housing measures, Housing America is the authoritative and most comprehensive book available on resolving the housing crisis.
Detailed Summary |
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction: Is there a Housing Crisis?
Randall G. Holcombe and Benjamin Powell
2. Urban Planning, Housing Affordability, and Land Use
Samuel R. Staley
3. The Benefits of Nonzoning
Bernard H. Siegan
4. Building Codes, Housing Prices, and the Poor
William Tucker
5. Smart Growth and Housing
Randal O’Toole
6. Inclusionary Zoning
Benjamin Powell and Edward Stringham
7. A Brief Survey of Rent Control in America: Past Mistakes and Future Directions
Matthew Brown
8. The Economics of Government Housing Assistance for the Poor
Joshua C. Hall and Matt Ryan
9. Eminent Domain
Randall G. Holcombe
10. Arresting Development: Impact Fees in Theory and Practice
Jack Estill, Benjamin Powell, and Edward Stringham
11. The Economics of Housing Bubbles
Mark Thornton
12. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Housing: Good Intentions Gone Awry
Lawrence J. White
13. Anatomy of a Train Wreck: Causes of the Mortgage Meltdown
Stan J. Liebowitz
14. Urban Planning: The Government or the Market
Fred E. Foldvary
15. Private Neighborhood Governance: Trends and New Options in Collective Housing Ownership
Robert H. Nelson
About the Authors
Index Praise for Housing America “Housing and land use in America (they are a package) may be our most regulated and politicized industry. It suffers from the full attention of federal, state and local governments, having remarkable acquiescence of the courts. Only the most naive observers would think that the outcome could be benign. We are now living in post-2007 economic train wreck, that will be studied and debated for years. The very best place for everyone to start is the milestone book, Housing America. Clearly written and superbly enlightening, this comprehensive book assembles and wonderfully synthesizes an amazing amount of up-to-date research. Highly recommended.”
—Peter Gordon, Professor of Policy, Planning and Development, University of Southern California
"In Housing America, Randy Holcombe and Benjamin Powell have assembled the work by some of the most insightful and interesting minds in the field. Several chapters, especially that by Lawrence J. White, illuminate the causes of the current housing crisis, and the others offer provocative and highly useful analyses that will remain timely long after the present crisis has passed."
—William A. Fischel, Professor of Economics and Patricia F. and William B. Hale '44 Professor in Arts and Sciences, Dartmouth College
"Holcombe and Powell have assembled a terrific line-up of scholars to address an issue of fundamental importance as we recover from the current recession. Avoiding a repeat of the housing market mess of the last decade or two will require a careful understanding of the ways in which often well-intentioned policies to expand homeownership and control growth have distorted both the price of housing and the cost of borrowing in ways that have harmed many. Housing America provides a wide-ranging and well-researched look at almost every aspect of the housing market, and this much-needed volume is irreplaceable in thinking about how to reform government policy in the United States."
—Steven G. Horwitz, Professor of Economics, St. Lawrence University
"Housing America is a welcome book by skeptics of government interventions in housing markets. The volume is an important counterweight to the writings of those who urge ever greater state involvement.”
—Robert C. Ellickson, Walter E. Meyer Professor of Property and Urban Law, Yale University
“Housing America is a comprehensive book that analyzes the contemporary U.S. housing market. The emphasis is on national, state and local government policies toward housing, land use and related issues and surveys the various views about the current housing crisis and its relationship to the broader financial meltdown. The authors include distinguished economists and other policy experts who correctly point to government policies as the causes of existing housing problems. The book reflects the appropriate view that the need is for less, not more, government intervention in housing markets. Housing America will be of great value on housing issues for all readers, including scholars and instructors.”
—Edwin S. Mills, Emeritus Professor of Real Estate and Finance, Northwestern University
“Holcombe and Powell have compiled a timely and provocative collection of essays on the U.S. housing market. Housing America is an excellent resource for anyone with a serious concern for the future of housing today. And this superb book would provide an outstanding guide for a graduate seminar on housing economics.”
—G. Donald Jud, Professor Emeritus of Economics, University of North Carolina, Greensboro
"With a President promising intrusive policies to remake the way all Americans live, work and travel, the very timely book Housing America is invaluable in challenging and providing alternatives to the unprecedented social engineering now underway in Washington."
—Ronald D. Utt, Senior Research Fellow, Heritage Foundation
“Housing America: Building Out of a Crisis is a unique compendium of perspectives on the housing market. It is unique in its demonstrations of the importance of limited government intervention in the housing market. It reveals that many of the purportedly dysfunctional features of housing market behavior are, in fact, a direct consequence of regulation, rather than native features of free markets. Of special currency are the revealing chapters that trace the causes of the current crises in mortgage and housing markets to government's heavy-handed attempts to democratize access to credit and homeownership. The policies pandered to politically important constituencies at the expense of banks, borrowers, builders and even the economy itself. It is a stark illustration of the hazards of government manipulation of markets for social-engineering purposes. The irony of government intervention in housing markets is that the very groups asserted to be beneficiaries of the intervention, in the end, suffer most. This is demonstrated amply in this fine volume with chapters on rent control, zoning, smart-growth, low-income housing and other planning and regulatory policies. In the current political environment, where greater government presence and regulation is seen as a good thing, this book is must reading.”
—Randall J. Pozdena, President of QuantEcon, Inc.; former Research Vice President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco; former professor of economics and finance at the University of California at Berkeley and Irvine; and author of The Modern Economics of Housing
About the Editors Randall G. Holcombe is Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and DeVoe Moore Professor of Economics at Florida State University. He is author of twelve books and more than 100 articles published in academic and professional journals. His books include Writing Off Ideas: Taxation, Foundations, and Philanthropy in America, Public Policy and the Quality of Life, From Liberty to Democracy: The Transformation of American Government, and Entrepreneurship and Economic Progress.
Benjamin W. Powell is Research Fellow at the Independent Institute, Assistant Professor of Economics at Suffolk University, and a Senior Economist with the Beacon Hill Institute. He is author of more than two dozen scholarly articles and editor of the book, Making Poor Nations Rich: Entrepreneurship and the Process of Development.
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