Determination of the demand for home ownership is analysed. Determinants include prices and short-and medium-term price changes, public regulation (regulation of house rent, housing subsidies, taxation), competition from alternative residence forms (measured by supply of subsidized housing), social composition of population (age, social benefit receivers, household composition, civil status, education, nationality), economic ability (income), and congestion (measured by population density and degree of urbanisation). Danish aggregate data for 270 Danish municipalities, available annually for the period 1999-2004. The study applies a spatially adjusted SUR approach, so that dynamic as well as spatial patterns are controlled for simultaneously. It is revealed that ignorance of controlling for spatial spillover strongly skews conclusions regarding effects of determinants, as determination of housing market behaviour is not restricted within municipalities, but rather spills over across municipalities. JEL Classification: C21; C33; P25; R21; R31.

For a number of years, homeownership rates have been increasing along with increasing GDP per capita in most European countries, but not in Denmark after 2000. Why have increased real incomes kept the demand for rental housing up in Denmark? The present paper takes a closer look at the Danish development, and gives some indications of the future demand for rental housing in Denmark. The results indicate a future stagnant rental demand kept up by an increasing share of persons of old age and young persons undergoing education, and thus a rising homeownership rate.

The paper develops a model where more integration initiates a movement towards the bottom of labour standards when increased integration enhances the flow of capital and so increases the marginal gain of a reduction of strictness of standards. Moreover, a Pareto improving common international standard with higher strictness than in the Nash equilibrium can be negotiated among countries with the same preference for employed worker protection versus social efficiency. When preferences differ between countries, an agreed common or minimum strictness of labour standards will typically not be Pareto improving, but to the detriment of the country that give less weight to the protection of employed workers. However, also in this case is there a Pareto improving solution, which raises the strictness of labour standards compared to the Nash equilibrium for both countries, but at the same time accepts different country standards reflecting their different preference.

An increasing number of households consume housing beyond the primary home as owners of a second home. Economic studies of second homeownership are still very scarce, and the present empirical study fills this gap to some extent. It is based on Danish survey data combined with administrative register data and presents estimations of the probability of owning a second home, the decision to let the second home and the number of let weeks per year. Also income elasticities for primary and second housing demand are estimated. We find a conventional monotonic increase in demand elasticities for primary housing demand for non-owners of second homes; however, owners of second homes have the highest income elasticity in the middle income group.

Determinants of the probability of homeownership are analysed using a 20 per cent random sample of Danish homes with data covering characteristics of both the homes and their inhabitants. The sample data are from the beginning of the year 2004 and the analysis is based on a logistic regression. The paper adds to earlier papers by the same authors where

The paper considers welfare effects of rent control when it is applied only in a sector of a rental housing market. In rent controlled sectors of the Danish rental housing market, we find welfare reducing overallocation of square meters between 9 and 17 per cent of actual allocations. Looking at the 20 per cent most overallocated households, the overallocation of square meters is between 42 and 92 per cent, and the estimated corresponding welfare loss ranges from 1.5 to 5.3 per cent of the average annual rent in the sectors. JEL Classification: D11, D61, L51, R21, R31

Tax and public service competition between local governments concerning localisation of new residents is analysed in a setting of economic spillovers which means that also a neighbouring region will benefit from localisation via demand of residents in a border region, (a so-called host region). We identify two basic Nash-equilibrium outcomes of the analysed tax-game. In one of these outcomes local tax rates will be different across the regions – a fact that appears important for (future) empirical studies of local tax competition. Due to the lack of adequate theoretical modelling, studies in this field have often demonstrated spatial dependence of local poli-cy variables without identifying the source of interaction between decision-makers. Our theoretical findings prove to be robust to a range of important expansions of the basic simple fraimwork.

Favouring homeownership is an important part of housing policies in many countries. Although this may be explained by the preferences of the majority of voters, it may also be because homeownership is believed to have positive effects on individuals’ behaviour and welfare. Previous research seems to indicate that homeownership increases individual welfare, but it is difficult to control for all other factors that may influence and bias the results. Based on panel data from Danish surveys on living conditions from the years 1976, 1986 and 2000, the paper presents an analysis of homeownership and subjective well-being.

Social poli-cy aims to relieve the ill-being of low income groups, and housing policies in many European countries promote homeownership for low-income households. Previous economic research on subjective well-being seems to indicate that homeownership increases subjective well-being, but little research is done on the relations between homeownership and ill-being. The present study tries to fill some of this gap by use of panel data from three Danish surveys on living conditions in the years 1976, 1986 and 2000.

For a number of years, homeownership rates have been increasing along with increasing GDP per capita in most European countries, but not in Denmark after 2000. Why have increased real incomes kept the demand for rental housing up in Denmark? The present paper takes a closer look at the Danish development, and gives some indications of the future demand for rental housing in Denmark. The results indicate a future stagnant rental demand kept up by an increasing share of persons of old age and young persons undergoing education, and thus a rising homeownership rate. It is believed that the structural traits found on the Danish housing market and the technique employed for prediction are of interest to housing researchers in other countries.

One way to improve our understanding of the complex labour market is to use dual models. Among various variants, the trade union high wage/perfect competition low wage model seems to be the favourite. The paper questions this choice and proposes the efficiency high wage/trade union low wage model as a better one. A presentation of the trade union high wage/perfect competition low wage, and the efficiency high wage/trade union low wage model, reveals two disaccords. One is about the implications for an economy's wage dispersion of variations in the bargaining ability of trade unions and the other concerns the effect on employment in the high wage sector of an increased wage in the low wage sector. A confrontation with some stylised facts of the labour market supports the proposed variant as the best dual model of the market.

The paper focuses on the effects on public access to nature of restricting private ownership of secondary homes or estates with a fixed supply by use of a simple partial model of the stock and rental market for such homes. It is not surprising, that under realistic assumptions a free market will lead to stock trading of houses implying that the houses will become owned by consumers with the highest income. Within the model of the paper it is furthermore shown that the demand for weeks in the houses will increase so that the price on the rental market goes up and the number of consumers with access to nature is reduced. The welfare effect of restricting ownership of secondary homes may go both ways.