Housing Privatization as Intergenerational Redistribution
◈ 주 제 : Housing Privatization as Intergenerational Redistribution
◈ 발표자 : Hanming Fang (Upenn)
◈ 일 시 : 2024년 8월 21일 수요일 10:30 ~ 11:45
◈ 장 소 : 우석경제관(223동) 308호
◈ 주 관 : 경제학부, 경제연구소 한국경제혁신센터, SSK, BK21
"Housing Privatization as Intergenerational Redistribution," with Kaiji Chen (Emory University) and Yang Tang (Nanyang Technology University)
Abstract:
This paper argues that in economies with temporary fast-growing wage incomes, housing purchase subsidy to initial cohorts serves as an effective tool of redistribution from the future towards current generations. Using China's housing reforms in the 1990s as a policy experiment, we show quantitatively that housing purchase subsidies to cohorts entering the labor market before 1994 increased substantially their homeowner rates in the initial years, which later on allowed them to enjoy the capital gain from selling their houses to future generations. Our welfare analysis suggests that, despite welfare loss for cohorts born in the 1980s, housing purchase subsidy is more desirable for future generations than alternative social security reforms as an intergenerational transfer scheme, as the latter involves high social security tax burdens for those generations experiencing a slowdown in wage growth.