The purpose of this chapter is to survey recent research on housing markets and policy in what used to be called the "second" and "third" worlds. We adopt the labels "transition" economies to refer to countries as disparate as Russia and Vietnam, and "developing" to refer to countries as disparate as Korea and Singapore (arguably now developed) and countries like Mozambique and Laos. It is therefore quite interesting that the bulk of the research surveyed finds that housing market behavior is remarkably similar from place to place. Institutions and constraints, particularly the amount of income available for housing and other goods and services certainly do vary dramatically from place to place. And the stakes of how well housing markets work vary from place to place. But these differences in institutions and constraints do not obscure regularities in behavior. The first major section, on housing markets (Section 2), examines property rights, supply, demand and tenure. Section 3 presents research on the related markets for land, finance and infrastructure. Housing policy is covered in Section 4, including housing subsidy systems, privatization, taxation and regulation. Section 5 concludes with a discussion of current issues and research.

Economic analysis of housing markets in developing and transition economies

Urban Housing and Financial Markets: Some International Comparisons:

Rapid growth in many developing-country cities is straining the capacity of their shelter delivery systems. Governments have chosen a variety of implicit and explicit policies to ameliorate these strains. However, these policies are not always consistent with their objectives, often because of a lack of knowledge of how housing markets actually work and how policies affect and are constrained by market behavior. This paper reviews recent research on housing market behavior in developing countries, including the demand for housing and the pattern of housing investment across countries, the financing of housing by low-income households, and the willingness to pay for secure tenure. Common housing policies are then examined, including public housing, sites and services projects, and slum clearance versus upgrading. Rent controls, measures to improve the supply of finance and infrastructure, building codes and standards are also discussed.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3986514.pdf

Shelter strategies for the urban poor in developing countries

Housing and finance in developing countries: invisible issues on research and policy agendas

Housing markets in third world cities: Research and policy into the 1990s

The aim of this paper is to examine the indirect effects of new housing construction on the redistribution of old housing stock in developing countries. The basic data for the study comes from the author's work in Tunisia, with comparative illustration from similar studies in Mexico, and is used to test a certain number of conclusions on filtering derived from empirical studies undertaken in developed countries. The conclusions are that dwellings in the middle range of values initiated the longest chains of moves, but that as even these chains end before reaching the poorest families, filtering strategies need to be complemented by a positive programme of slum-upgrading.

Ridha Ferchiou

Papers

The Indirect Effects of New Housing Construction in Developing Countries