The comparative study of housing decommodification lags behind classical welfare state research, while housing research itself is rich in homeownership studies but lacks comparative accounts of private and social rentals due to missing comparative data. Building on existing works and various primary sources, this study presents a new collection of up to forty-eight countries’ social housing shares in stock and new construction since the first housing laws around 1900. The interpolated benchmark time series generally describes the rise and fall of social housing across a residual, a socialist, and a Northern-European housing group. The decline was steeper than for the classical welfare state, but the degree of erosion was surprisingly small in some countries where public housing associations remained resilient. Within the broader housing welfare state, social housing correlates positively with rent regulation and allowances, but negatively with homeownership subsidies and liberal mortgage regulation. A multivariate analysis shows that social housing is rather explained by housing shortages and complementarities with rental and welfare policies than by typical welfare state theories (GDP, political parties). Generally, the paper shows that conventional housing typologies are difficult to defend over time and argues more generally for including housing decommodification in welfare state research.

Welfare is traditionally understood as social security decommodifying labour markets or as social investment policies. In the domain of housing, however, welfare for homeowners is largely hidden in the tax codes’ fiscal exemptions. Based on a content analysis of legislation, this article introduces a novel yearly database of 37 countries between 1901 and 2020 to uncover the “hidden welfare state” of taxes on imputed rent, deductibility of mortgage payments, housing capital gains tax, and value-added tax on newly built dwellings. Summary indices of homeownership attractiveness and neutrality of the tax code show that fiscal homeownership policies have been in decline until the 1980s and risen ever since. They are in place where finance is liberally and labour restrictively regulated. Contrary to the classical welfare state, they are not associated with an economic logic of industrialism or left-wing governments. They rather are an alternative to rent regulation used by Common-law jurisdictions or smaller countries. As welfare for property owners, the logic of fiscal homeownership welfare diverges from the classical welfare for the labouring classes.

This study explores the effects of consumers’ beliefs about labels on chicken. We elicit beliefs associated with seven different labels. By varying the presence/absence of labels in a choice experiment, we are able to determine the effects of labels on consumer choices and decompose the value of labels into beliefs and base utility. Health perceptions have the largest positive effect, and impacts of animal welfare vary by information treatment. We explore the convergent validity of our approach by comparing individual’s beliefs to responses to a best-worst scaling question, which were weakly correlated, suggesting the two approaches are measuring different constructs.

This paper summarises the evidence from recent research relating to the British Planning system's impact on the supply of development. Planning serves important economic and social purposes but it is essential to distinguish between restricting development relative to demand in particular places to provide public goods and mitigate market failure in other ways, including ensuring the future ability of cities to expand and maintain a supply of public goods and infrastructure; and an absolute restriction on supply, raising prices of housing and other urban development generally. Evidence is presented that there are at least four separate mechanisms, inbuilt into the British system, which result in a systematic undersupply of land and space for both residential and commercial purposes and that these have had important effects on both our housing market and the wider economy and on welfare more widely defined.

This article summarises the long-run decline in housing affordability in England and suggests this is substantially attributable to shortfalls in housing supply. Public attitudes to housing have become increasingly pro-development in recent years and the current policy framework – summarised in the article – seeks to provide a comprehensive and rounded response to the challenges facing the housing market.

In housing affordability levels and volatility, there could hardly be a greater contrast than between the UK and Germany. Differences in history, institutions and policies are explored in this paper. Residential housing supply has been far more expansionary in Germany and mortgage credit more tightly regulated. A sensibly regulated rental market and stable German house prices have combined to leave the rental sector with over half of tenures. Policy failures in the UK have resulted in widening intergenerational inequality, increased social exclusion, adversely affected productivity and growth and raised the risk of financial instability. Policy lessons are drawn for the UK, which go far beyond the remit of the immediately responsible Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

Determinants of prices of 1,302 weanling Thoroughbreds sold at the 2010 Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale are investigated. A hedonic pricing model is adopted to identify price determinants, and the corresponding marginal values of those determinants are estimated. Prices were responsive to pedigree quality variables, including the sire's stud fee, the stage of the sire's breeding career, and whether the dam or the dam's progeny had earned “black type.” In addition, individual weanling characteristics such as gender, age, state of birth, and sale placement influenced price. Results can be used as a decision tool by both buyers and sellers.

This paper derives price-cost margins for the old newspaper (ONP) input market for newsprint manufacture and then examines the effects of two government policies and two variables measuring the market performances of ONP input and newsprint output on the oligopsonist's ONP price-cost margins. In the wastepaper recycling market in particular, the ONP input market has not been successful in using the ONP generated. The outcomes of the study are that various degrees of price distortions existed in the ONP input markets in four regions of the United States during 1972–1995. Demand-side policy had a positive effect and supply-side policy had a negative effect on ONP price–cost margins in all regions.

As national and local economies become more globalized, many rural areas are going to find it more difficult to compete for private capital investments. A traditional tool, modifications to tax policy, of state and local governments will not be as effective (for many communities it has never been effective) in the future. These communities will need to seek other avenues of growth. However, for many rural communities even alternative avenues will not lead to enhanced economic opportunity.

Economic effects for three scenarios of antimicrobial drug use in livestock production—a no-ban scenario and two levels of bans—are examined through cost minimization and a partial equilibrium analysis. Results indicate that regulating antimicrobial drug use in livestock production would increase per-unit costs of producers previously using drugs and reduce beef supplies in the short run, reducing consumer surplus. Producers not previously using drugs would benefit from short-run price increases.

We examine producer behavior, resistance evolution, and returns under alternative refuge requirements in an eastern North Carolina region with multiple corn, cotton, and soybean fields infested by a mobile pest. Returns are highest, pyrethroid sprays occur least frequently, and pyrethroid resistance evolution is delayed most effectively with no refuge requirement. Complying with the current 20% refuge requirement costs the producer $8.67 per cotton acre, or $34.21 per non-transgenic insecticidal (Bt) cotton acre. Returns are highest under each refuge requirement when one-toxin Bt cotton is not phased out; however, removal of the technology at the earliest phase-out date minimizes regional pyrethroid sprays.

In this article, possible use of climate forecasts in rainfall index insurance of hay and forage production is considered in a geographical area (southeast United States) relatively heavily impacted by the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Analysis of the stochastic properties of rainfall, yields, and the ENSO forecasts using the copula technique shows that the forecast impact depends on the proximity to the Gulf Coast where the impact of the ENSO is more pronounced and earlier in the year. Stochastic modeling shows that the use of skillful long-term climate forecasts by the insured producers creates intertemporal adverse selection that can be precluded by offering forecast conditional premiums. The impacts on the efficiency of the rainfall index insurance and results of sensitivity analysis with respect to model parameters are discussed.

U.S. rice industry producers face pressure from consumers, suppliers, and the government to reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with rice (Oryza sativa L.) production. Arkansas rice cultivar-specific net GHG emissions information allows models of paddy rice emissions. Baseline levels of profit, yield variance, and GHG emissions are established using extension data. Varietal selection is then optimized to maximize profits and minimize GHG emissions, both constrained and unconstrained by baseline yield variance. Carbon abatement functions are estimated to examine the effects of hypothetical carbon prices on varietal selection.

The substitution of capital for labor and new labor-saving technologies has reduced the labor required for farming, yet many farms today depend on hired labor in some form. Common in the literature is the assumption of perfectly substitutable farm labor. This has implications for the operator's off-farm labor decision. Intuitively, different forms of farm labor have different impacts on production. We use the Agricultural and Resource Management Survey to estimate the elasticity of substitution between hired and family labor. The results provide little evidence to support the popular homogeneity assumption and find labor can be unitary and complimentary under certain scenarios.

This study provides valuable insights into cow-calf producer voluntary participation in the National Animal Identification System and producers' perceptions of several issues critically impacting the success of voluntary traceability systems. Cow-calf producers believe that the most important issues to the U.S. beef industry in designing a national, individual animal traceability system are monitoring/managing disease, maintaining current foreign markets, accessing foreign markets, and increasing consumer confidence. Furthermore, producers are concerned with cost, liability, reliability of technology, failure of system to meet stated goals, and confidentiality of information associated with these systems.

Socioeconomic factors influencing consumer demand for nursery products and landscape projects were investigated using consumer survey data collected from North Carolina in 2008. Tobit models were estimated for censored dependent variables, budget expenditure shares on nursery products, and landscape spending. The most significant factors influencing the share of income spent on nursery products were age and household income. The elderly and baby boomers tend to spend less on bedding plants, perennials, and outdoor hardscapes than Generations X and Y. The income elasticities suggest that the amount spent on outdoor living projects is sensitive to changes in household income, whereas spending in vegetable plants and chemicals is less responsive to income.

The Canadian system of housing finance proved to be resilient and efficient during the global financial crisis and its aftermath. The system's effectiveness is the result of a rigorous prudential regulatory and supervisory regime coupled with targeted government guarantees of mortgage insurance and securitisation products. In the post-crisis period, household debt levels and house prices have risen, owing, in part, to accommodative monetary conditions necessary to support the economic recovery. These vulnerabilities were mitigated by tightening macroprudential policy, specifically mortgage insurance rules, and strengthening mortgage-underwriting standards. Looking ahead, the housing finance framework needs to be adjusted and strengthened by rebalancing the risk exposures away from the government towards the private sector participants in the housing finance market. Although some measures have already been taken for this purpose, more adjustments may be needed to create the right incentives and achieve a sustainable rebalancing in risk exposures. Measures should also be considered to promote a liquid private-label mortgage securitisation market in Canada.