The private sector and urban housing production process in Nigeria: A study of small-scale landlords in Abuja

The private production system continues to supply the majority of housing to the population of Third World cities. In Nigeria, statistics show that the bulk of urban housing units is supplied for rent by small-scale private landlords. This paper examines the process of housing production among this category of producers using, as a case study, the peripheral settlements of Abuja, Nigeria's new capital city. A predominance of small-size sole proprietorships is established among the small-scale house building firms, mostly for reasons of maintaining operational flexibility and cost saving. It is also found that the greatest attraction of investing in rental housing by small entrepreneurs is the hedge it provides against inflation and the stability and permanence it introduces into the capital base of economic pursuits. A strong influence of traditional chiefs in land supply is revealed, together with the emergence of a commercialised land market, resulting in speculation and contributing to rising land prices. It is shown that building materials are the most problematic of the key building components to the housing production process. It is argued that small building firms would make more profit if they had access to formal sector working capital and that the practice of using casual workers in project execution has the advantage of enabling firms to survive periods of job drought, but does not encourage growth of the firms, apprenticeship training and skills development in the house construction industry. It is concluded that what is needed to enhance the operation of this category of producers is for government to accept an enabling role that will seek to minimise the financial burden and risks to which they are currently exposed.     

保障房市场与商品房市场关系研究

保障房和商品房在本质上是差异化产品,两者在对应的需求层次、房屋的品质、价格、供给和渠道等方面都存在着巨大的差别。自我国房地产市场化以来,商品房就始终处于市场独大的局面,但随着近年来我国政府加大了对楼市的调控、加快了保障房建设的步伐,房地产市场已朝着保障房市场和商品房市场并重的＂双轨制＂迈进。然而,保障房的大规模兴建和投放市场会对商品房市场乃至整个中国楼市产生什么影响,以及保障房供给体系在运行与管理过程中存在什么问题,目前尚不确定。为此,有必要对其深入分析并寻找对策。     

Influence of Income on Energy Beliefs and Behaviors of Urban Elderly

Although public attention toward residential energy costs has diminished in the past few years, meeting energy costs remains a concern for the elderly population. The impact of income on energy beliefs and behaviors of urban elderly indicate that lower income elderly may be adversely affected by residential energy costs. The results of this study indicate that urban elderly with lower incomes engage in more lifestyle cutbacks and curtailment behaviors than do those with higher incomes. This research emphasizes the need to investigate energy policies that target low income elderly.     

Residential Building Codes,Affordability, and Health Protection: A Risk-Tradeoff Approach

Residential building codes intended to promote health and safety may produce unintended countervailing risks by adding to the cost of construction. Higher construction costs increase the price of new homes and may increase health and safety risks through income and stock effects. The income effect arises because households that purchase a new home have less income remaining for spending on other goods that contribute to health and safety. The stock effect arises because suppression of new-home construction leads to slower replacement of less safe housing units. These countervailing risks are not presently considered in code debates. We demonstrate the feasibility of estimating the approximate magnitude of countervailing risks by combining the income effect with three relatively well understood and significant home-health risks. We estimate that a code change that increases the nationwide cost of constructing and maintaining homes by $150 (0.1% of the average cost to build a single-family home) would induce offsetting risks yielding between 2 and 60 premature fatalities or, including morbidity effects, between 20 and 800 lost quality-adjusted life years (both discounted at 3%) each year the code provision remains in effect. To provide a net health benefit, the code change would need to reduce risk by at least this amount. Future research should refine these estimates, incorporate quantitative uncertainty analysis, and apply a full risk-tradeoff approach to real-world case studies of proposed code changes.     

A Dynamic Model of Demand for Houses and Neighborhoods

This paper develops a dynamic model of neighborhood choice along with a computationally light multi‐step estimator. The proposed empirical framework captures observed and unobserved preference heterogeneity across households and locations in a flexible way. We estimate the model using a newly assembled data set that matches demographic information from mortgage applications to the universe of housing transactions in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1994 to 2004. The results provide the first estimates of the marginal willingness to pay for several non‐marketed amenities—neighborhood air pollution, violent crime, and racial composition—in a dynamic framework. Comparing these estimates with those from a static version of the model highlights several important biases that arise when dynamic considerations are ignored.     

城市单位职工位置能力与获取住房利益关系的实证研究

我国城市现阶段单位职工获取住房利益的大小依赖于职工自身具备的位置能力高低.在影响职工位置能力的因素中,职工所在的"单位"起着至关重要的作用.在此基础上,职工的职务、政治面貌、收入和职业也对住房利益获得起着重要作用.     

我国住房公积金制度的缺陷与对策研究——以住房公积金的劫“贫”济“富”现象为视角

住房公积金制度在我国住房分配制度的改革上起到了引导作用,但是,随着社会经济进一步发展,现有的住房公积金管理制度已经明显不适应目前形势的发展。2014年3月13日全国“两会”闭幕后,原本饱受争议的住房公积金制度再次引发公众的探讨,越来越多的公众质疑住房公积金的劫“贫”济“富”现象。通过深层次分析住房公积金制度劫“贫”济“富”的缘由,探索我国住房公积金的发展路径,提出确定合理的缴费率、扩大住房公积金的覆盖范围和多渠道实现公积金投资、合理利用住房公积金的增值收益等手段来完善我国的公积金制度,使其更加适应城镇化发展的要求,让住房公积金普惠于民。     

谈住宅散热器的评析与技术研究

本文探讨了目前我国住宅建设发展,住宅供暖方式的改变对散热器的要求,分析了铸铁散热器,铝铜散热器、钢制散热器、塑料散热器等的性能与应用,对散热器的承压与钢制散热器的防腐控制和铜铝散热器的技术分析进行了技术研究。     

住房抵押贷款证券化风险防范机制的构建

防范和化解住房抵押贷款证券化在交易过程中的风险,应从交易的各个环节入手:银行应通过提前偿付锁定、提前偿付罚金和收益率维持等制度防范内部信用风险;证券发行机构应通过优化贷款组合、内外部信用增级来提高证券发行级别;投资者应采用金融衍生工具化解利率和汇率风险.此外,政府还应完善相关的法律法规,建立政府支持体系,为住房抵押贷款证券化的顺利开展扫除制度上的障碍.     

过度通勤的识别及其影响因素:以深圳为例

城市劳动力市场与住房市场的不完全市场特性,使得劳动力很难进行最优的居住与就业选择,进而导致城市通勤成本的增加,过度通勤是城市中普遍存在的一种现象。文章利用深圳市住房调查问卷的相关信息,对过度通勤进行识别并对其影响因素进行分析。研究发现,过度通勤的大小在10%～20%之间;过度通勤的影响因素包括受教育程度、从事的行业类型以及住房所有权形式。