What shapes the ways in which citizens participate in politics? This article investigates the association between private homeownership and the forms of citizens’ political behaviors using a Chinese nationwide social survey. Exploiting the abolishment of the welfare housing system in the late 1990s as a quasi-natural experiment, I find that owning a home and experiencing home value appreciation increases citizens’ willingness for political engagement as well as participatory behaviors through formal channels, but reduces their confrontational behaviors towards government such as participation in protests. Further evidence on political attitudes suggests that homeowners are more critical of government performance, yet they report higher political trust in the state and a stronger preference for maintaining the status quo. These findings highlight the critical role of asset ownership in preventing conflict and promoting stability by shaping the political behaviors and beliefs of citizens.

In this article, we study an optimization problem for a couple including two breadwinners with uncertain life times. Both breadwinners need to choose the optimal strategies for consumption, investment, housing, and life insurance purchasing to maximize the utility. In this article, the prices of housing assets and investment risky assets are assumed to be correlated. These two breadwinners are considered to have dependent mortality rates to include the breaking heart effect. The method of copula functions is used to construct the joint survival functions of two breadwinners. The analytical solutions of optimal strategies can be achieved, and numerical results are demonstrated.

I argue that alienation objections to housing markets face a dilemma. Either they purport to explain distributive injustices, or they hold that markets are objectionable on intrinsic grounds. The first disjunct is empirically dubious. The second undermines the motivation for objecting to housing markets, and overgeneralizes: if markets are objectionable due to alienation, so is all large-scale social cooperation.

At a time when the prospects confronting Hong Kong are overshadowed by the combination of the popular movement for democratic rights and the corona virus epidemic that is challenging Hong Kong as well as China, issues of income inequality and declining economic prospects deeply affect the future of Hong Kong youth. This article documents the pattern of growing income inequality with specific reference to educated youth of Generation Y in spheres such as income distribution, the relative stagnation of income of young graduates, and soaring housing prices that make Hong Kong among the most expensive real estate markets in the world.

We find significant evidence of model misspecification, in the form of neglected serial correlation, in the econometric model of the U.S. housing market used by Taylor (2007) in his critique of monetary policy following the 2001 recession. When we account for that serial correlation, his model fails to replicate the historical paths of housing starts and house price inflation. Further modifications allow us to capture both the housing boom and the bust. Our results suggest that the counterfactual monetary policy proposed by Taylor (2007) would not have averted the pre-financial crisis collapse in the housing market. Additional analysis implies that the burst of house price inflation during the COVID-19 pandemic was not caused by the deviations from the Taylor rule that occurred during this period.

Parrots (Psittaciformes) are widely kept in captivity, yet their welfare is under-researched in comparison to other captive species. This study aimed to determine key welfare issues affecting parrots through a modified Delphi approach. Twenty-eight welfare issues were first compiled via a preliminary literature review. Parrot welfare experts and sector professionals (n = 26) were then recruited to participate in an online survey to rank the identified welfare issues on a six-point scale according to severity, duration and prevalence of each issue. Participants could provide commentary on their ranking and propose additional welfare issues of concern. Items with a mean score of 4 or above progressed to a second survey, where participants (n = 14) indicated whether they agreed or disagreed with the current ranking of the welfare issue. Finally, two online workshops were held, where participants (n = 7) discussed the rankings from the second survey and sought to establish a consensus on the top ten welfare issues in each category and overall. Six of the seven final participants agreed with the final rankings, achieving a consensus rate of 86%. The top welfare issues overall were lack of owner knowledge and support; social isolation; housing; environmental opportunity to express behaviours; nutrition; development of normal behaviour; lack of a ‘life plan’ for birds; abnormal behaviours; lack of parrot-specific veterinary training; and insufficient application and enforcement of legislation. It is hoped that identification and recognition of these priority areas will be useful in directing future efforts in research, owner and veterinary education, and policy initiatives to improve parrot welfare.

In the past five years, there has been a striking increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness, including unsheltered homelessness, across Canada (Infrastructure Canada, 2024). Facing this growing crisis, local governments are changing and expanding their responses. An important innovation is tiny homes, a form of deeply affordable and supportive housing for people leaving homelessness. In this brief article, I ask what explains local government's increased leadership and innovation with respect to homelessness and housing crises. Drawing on interviews and document analysis regarding the development of a tiny homes community in a mid-sized BC municipality, I identify three factors that have contributed to local government's policy innovation: 1) local officials are keenly aware of the inadequacies of federal and provincial responses and of the need for alternative approaches; 2) they hold important resources, notably local knowledge and land; and 3) they are facing pressure to respond from citizens and service providers.

Supportive public policies are suggested as ways to lessen gentrification’s impact for older adults. While explicit policies designed to help older adults with gentrification are rare, literature on age-friendly cities is a close proxy. We utilized three North American cases undergoing gentrification: New York City, NY, and Denver, CO, in the United States and Hamilton, in Ontario, Canada, to present existing neighbourhood-based policies as social determinants of health in housing, resource access, healthcare, transportation, and communal places. Age-friendly policy application gap examples and COVID-19’s impact were included. Using a qualitative comparative case study method, we found policies were not specifically designed to address older adults’ gentrification needs. With the call for age-friendly designations, the role of gentrification in neighbourhoods with older populations must be included. We call for gentrification-specific policies for older adults to provide greater safeguards especially when events such as COVID-19 compete for existing, over-stretched resources.

Policy with concentrated costs often faces intense localized opposition. Both private and governmental actors frequently use financial compensation to attempt to overcome this opposition. We measure how effective such compensation is for winning policy support in the arena of housing development. We build a novel survey platform that shows respondents images of their self-reported neighborhood with hypothetical renderings of new housing superimposed on existing structures. Using a sample of nearly 600 Bostonians, we find that compensating residents increases their support for nearby market-rate housing construction. However, compensation does not influence support for affordable housing. We theorize that the inclusion of affordable housing activates symbolic attitudes, decreasing the importance of financial self-interest and thus the effectiveness of compensation. Our findings suggest greater interaction between self-interest and symbolic politics within policy design than previously asserted. Together, this research signals opportunities for coalition building by policy entrepreneurs when facing opposition due to concentrated costs.

This state-of-the-art paper begins to unpack the concept of a housing crisis. Whilst it may be a useful starting point in recognising the presence of problems within UK housing provision and allocation, its generic and umbrella coverage papers over the diversity of experiences. Similarly, as a concept it neither suggests the causes of the crisis nor possible solutions. With this in mind, this paper explores commodification within housing and uses this to recognise that our relationship to housing and our relationship to the crisis, can be shaped by our relationship to capital. However, the paper takes this further by arguing that the presence of vulnerability should also be borne in mind when considering commodification, where vulnerability includes experiences of discrimination, mental health, and legal status.

This paper argues that commodification of housing plays a key role in the reproduction of social and economic relations and contributes to debates by, firstly, recognising modern slavery as a fundamental intersection of economic and social vulnerability intimately connected to experiences of housing. Secondly, rather than understanding modern slavery in terms of exclusion, it should be understood as a form of adverse incorporation in the labour market and housing. Awareness, therefore, of critical realism as an analytical framework usefully takes debates beyond exploring relations between housing supply and housing experience to also include political economy and ideology. From this broader ontology of housing, it is possible to emphasise housing within reproduction of social and economic relations and consider ways in which this relates to modern slavery.

Crises create opportunities for policy change, yet the extent to which they encourage redistribution is under-researched. We adopt a narrative approach to study how crisis frames are mobilised to support or oppose redistribution, and whether that redistribution is progressive or regressive. A typology of crisis narratives with different redistributive implications is presented: retrenchment narratives promote deregulation and cuts to welfare; Robin Hood narratives advocate progressive redistribution with expanded rights; and restoration narratives favour bringing back the status quo ex ante. We apply the Narrative Policy Framework to examine how Australian parliamentarians used the language of ‘housing crisis’ during and after COVID-19. Despite existing research suggesting crisis narratives mostly support retrenchment, Australia’s pandemic housing debates were dominated by Robin Hood and restoration narratives. We show that party ideology matters for the redistributive content of crisis narratives, but the effect of ideology is mediated by incumbency status. We conclude that shifts in the parliamentary balance of power lead to changes in political parties’ rhetorical support for redistribution.