Housing finance in developing countries : a transaction cost approach

In most developing countries, relatively little mortgage credit is supplied voluntarily, mainly because of the high transaction costs associated with enforcing contracts. In most countries, the supply of mortgage credit is restrained more by the cost of post-contract governance than by the cost of producing contracts. This distinction is important because before-contract costs are dictated by technological conditions - that is, the nature of the production function - so little can be done to change them. The costs of governance, on the other hand, are more amenable to change. If there are significant gains from reducing these costs, institutional reforms may help realize them. In the lowest-income countries, the before-contract transaction costs of providing housing finance are probably high enough per loan dollar that low levels of demand explain the relative smallness of the housing sector. In most other developing countries, housing finance systems could grow more spontaneously and rapidly if there were more effective post-contract enforcement procedures. This growth would improve the efficiency of financial systems and reduce distortions in the economy - so the economic benefits of reducing housing transaction costs are likely to be significant.Banks&Banking Reform,Housing Finance,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Economic Theory&Research,Non Bank Financial Institutions

Shelter strategies for the urban poor : idiosyncratic and successful, but hardly mysterious

In 1986 the World Bank prepared a strategy for low-income housing in developing countries. This work grew out of the Bank's efforts to support the urban poor through an extensive housing assistance program that was launched by Bank President McNamara's speech on urban poverty. By that time, the Bank had provided more than $4 billion of such assistance, and had undertaken an extensive research effort to design support for that lending. Much has changed since that time, not only in the way the Bank provides shelter assistance, more than doubling its support since that review, but also in the changing consensus as to what shelter strategy should be. The authors review the emerging consensus. They examine three new research areas: the empirical analysis of the effects policy has on housing supply; the richer understanding of the effects that land market regulations have on specific projects and on the functioning of urban areas; and the alleged mysterious effects that de Soto, for example, claims that effective property rights have not only for shelter policy but for development more generally. The authors also examine the emergence of both a new financial innovation, micro-enterprise finance, and the increased emphasis given to project design based on community participation, showing how these approaches more fully reconcile the incentives faced by beneficiaries and donors. In sum, the authors argue that the evolving consensus on shelter strategy is not nearly as mysterious as some would claim. Housing markets in most developing countries remain highly idiosyncratic and constrained. Nevertheless, the evolving consensus on shelter strategy appears to recognize these idiosyncrasies and policy constraints as evidenced by the strong and improving performance of the Bank's shelter lending.Regional Governance,Banks&Banking Reform,Housing&Human Habitats,Public Sector Management and Reform,Urban Governance and Management,Urban Governance and Management,Regional Governance,Banks&Banking Reform,Public Sector Management and Reform,Housing&Human Habitats

Is Accra a superstar city ?

A recent study of house price behavior in U.S. cities by Gyourko, Mayer, and Sinai (2006) raises questions about so-called superstar cities in which housing is so inelastically supplied that it becomes unaffordable, as higher-income families outbid residents. We consider the case of Accra, Ghana, in this light, estimating the elasticity of housing supply and discussing the implications for growth and income distribution. There is not a great deal of data available to examine trends in Accra, so our method is indirect. First, we use a variant of the traditional monocentric city model to calculate the elasticity of Accra's housing supply relative to those of other similarly-sized African cities. This suggests that housing supply responsiveness is much higher elsewhere. This muted supply responsiveness is consistent with the observed higher housing prices. Second, we estimate a number of traditional housing demand equations and reduced form equations. Placing a number of restrictions on the equations allows us to infer Accra's housing supply elasticity. Taken together, our approaches suggest that lower-income families in Accra have such poor housing conditions because the market is extremely unresponsive to demand.Although the outcomes we have traced-high housing prices and low quality-are not unusual relative to the other developed country superstar cities, they are extreme. The welfare costs are considerable, so much so that in addition to direct housing market effects, these policies also appear to have potentially significant implications for the achievement of more equitable growth.Economic Theory&Research,Housing&Human Habitats,Banks&Banking Reform,,Public Sector Management and Reform

Shelter Strategies for the Urban Poor: Idiosyncratic and Successful, but Hardly Mysterious

In 1986 the World Bank prepared a strategy for low-income housing in developing countries. This work grew out of the Bank\u27s efforts to support the urban poor through an extensive housing assistance program that was launched by Bank President McNamara\u27s speech on urban poverty. By that time, the Bank had provided more than $4 billion of such assistance, and had undertaken an extensive research effort to design support for that lending. Much has changed since that time, not only in the way the Bank provides shelter assistance, more than doubling its support since that review, but also in the changing consensus as to what shelter strategy should be. Buckley and Kalarickal review the emerging consensus. They examine three new research areas: The empirical analysis of the effects policy has on housing supply; the richer understanding of the effects that land market regulations have on specific projects and on the functioning of urban areas; and the alleged mysterious effects that de Soto, for example, claims that effective property rights have not only for shelter policy but for development more generally. The authors also examine the emergence of both a new financial innovation, micro-enterprise finance, and the increased emphasis given to project design based on community participation, showing how these approaches more fully reconcile the incentives faced by beneficiaries and donors. In sum, the authors argue that the evolving consensus on shelter strategy is not nearly as mysterious as some would claim. Housing markets in most developing countries remain highly idiosyncratic and constrained. Nevertheless, the evolving consensus on shelter strategy appears to recognize these idiosyncrasies and policy constraints as evidenced by the strong and improving performance of the Bank\u27s shelter lending. This paper - a product of the Urban Unit, Transport and Urban Development Department - is part of a larger effort in the department to evaluate the lessons from 30 years of urban shelter loans

CMB dipoles and other low-order multipoles in the quasispherical Szekeres model

Several authors have previously shown that a Gpc-scale void based on the spherically symmetric Lemaıˆtre-Tolman-Bondi (LTB) model can provide a good fit to certain cosmological data, including the SNIa data, but it is only consistent with the observed CMB dipole if we are located very close to the center, in violation of the Copernican principle. In this work we investigate the more general quasispherical Szekeres model, which does not include spherical symmetry, in order to determine whether this option may be less constricting. We find that the observer is still constrained to a small region, but it is not as geometrically ''special'' as the center of a LTB void. Furthermore, whereas the quadrupole and octupole near the center of a LTB void are necessarily small, certain Szekeres models can include a significant quadrupole while still being consistent with the observed dipole, hinting that Szekeres models may be able to give an explanation for the observed quadrupole/octupole anomalies

Brain-Related Chronic Pain Disorder Treatment Method and Apparatus

A method for treating brain-related chronic pain disorders in human subjects includes assessing the brain function of a subject suffering from chronic pain, diagnosing a chronic pain-related abnormal brain condition, and mitigating the abnormal brain activity by applying an electrical stimulation signal to tissues corresponding to at least one area of abnormal brain activity

The effect of processing parameters on particle size in ammonia-induced precipitation of zirconyl chloride under industrially relevant conditions

The effect of pH of precipitation, starting solution concentration, and agitation levels on the particle size of hydrous zirconia precipitates have been investigated. It was found that all three variables affect the particle size of the hydrous zirconia. The smallest particle size is produced by a 0.81 M starting solution, precipitated at pH 12 with a high agitation level. The pH of precipitation was also found to have a significant impact on the type of hydrous zirconia produced. TGA/DTA, micro combustion and TEM / EDS were used to investigate the difference in the powders produced at pH 3 and 12. This work suggests that powders produced at pH 3 will have a structure similar to Zr[OH]4 whilst those at pH 12 are more likely ZrO[OH]2. XRD and micro-combustion suggest that the powders produced at pH 3 retained ammonium chloride whilst those produced at pH 12 did not. The filtration rates for the pH 3 product were significantly faster than that of the powders made at pH 12 which is significant in the industrial production of these materials