{"title":"Subsidies or green taxes? Evaluating the distributional effects of housing renovation policies among Dutch households","authors":"","doi":"10.1007/s10901-024-10118-5","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Abstract</h3> <p>Despite persistent housing affordability issues, energy policy and housing renovation are usually investigated separately from housing costs other than energy. Researchers have examined the financial viability of renovation attending to building conditions and the socio-economic characteristics of their occupants. However, the distributional impacts of renovation incentives and the potential of fiscal policy to redistribute housing costs remain understudied. Dutch fiscal policy, favouring homeownership, offers a relevant context to evaluate how property taxation can boost renovation rates. The novelty of this paper resides in investigating the impact of two policies, the current direct subsidy and a proposal for a green tax, on both the financial viability of renovation and the subsequent distribution of housing costs. The proposed green tax combines energy efficiency and taxation of property revenue. We employ a model considering marginal costs of housing renovation, obtained from a government dataset, and marginal benefits, drawn from a hedonic regression. We assess the distributional impacts of different policy scenarios by examining changes in user costs across income deciles. Our findings indicate that existing renovation subsidies exacerbate the regressive distributional impacts resulting from the current housing taxation system in the Netherlands. Introducing energy-efficiency-linked property taxation can make homeownership fiscality less regressive while incentivising housing renovation. Ultimately, this study highlights the importance of incorporating housing affordability as a fundamental element in renovation policies to balance environmental and distributional objectives.</p>","PeriodicalId":47558,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Housing and the Built Environment","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Housing and the Built Environment","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-024-10118-5","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Despite persistent housing affordability issues, energy policy and housing renovation are usually investigated separately from housing costs other than energy. Researchers have examined the financial viability of renovation attending to building conditions and the socio-economic characteristics of their occupants. However, the distributional impacts of renovation incentives and the potential of fiscal policy to redistribute housing costs remain understudied. Dutch fiscal policy, favouring homeownership, offers a relevant context to evaluate how property taxation can boost renovation rates. The novelty of this paper resides in investigating the impact of two policies, the current direct subsidy and a proposal for a green tax, on both the financial viability of renovation and the subsequent distribution of housing costs. The proposed green tax combines energy efficiency and taxation of property revenue. We employ a model considering marginal costs of housing renovation, obtained from a government dataset, and marginal benefits, drawn from a hedonic regression. We assess the distributional impacts of different policy scenarios by examining changes in user costs across income deciles. Our findings indicate that existing renovation subsidies exacerbate the regressive distributional impacts resulting from the current housing taxation system in the Netherlands. Introducing energy-efficiency-linked property taxation can make homeownership fiscality less regressive while incentivising housing renovation. Ultimately, this study highlights the importance of incorporating housing affordability as a fundamental element in renovation policies to balance environmental and distributional objectives.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Housing and the Built Environment is a scholarly journal presenting the results of scientific research and new developments in policy and practice to a diverse readership of specialists, practitioners and policy-makers. This refereed journal covers the fields of housing, spatial planning, building and urban development. The journal guarantees high scientific quality by a double blind review procedure. Next to that, the editorial board discusses each article as well. Leading scholars in the field of housing, spatial planning and urban development publish regularly in Journal of Housing and the Built Environment. The journal publishes articles from scientists all over the world, both Western and non-Western, providing a truly international platform for developments in both theory and practice in the fields of housing, spatial planning, building and urban development.
Journal of Housing and the Built Environment (HBE) has a wide scope and includes all topics dealing with people-environment relations. Topics concern social relations within the built environment as well as the physicals component of the built environment. As such the journal brings together social science and engineering. HBE is of interest for scientists like housing researchers, social geographers, (urban) planners and architects. Furthermore it presents a forum for practitioners to present their experiences in new developments on policy and practice. Because of its unique structure of research articles and policy and practice contributions, HBE provides a forum where science and practice can be confronted. Finally, each volume of HBE contains one special issue, in which recent developments on one particular topic are discussed in depth.
The aim of Journal of Housing and the Built Environment is to give international exposure to recent research and policy and practice developments on the built environment and thereby open up a forum wherein re searchers can exchange ideas and develop contacts. In this way HBE seeks to enhance the quality of research in the field and disseminate the results to a wider audience. Its scope is intended to interest scientists as well as policy-makers, both in government and in organizations dealing with housing and urban issues.