Speculative Price Bubbles in Urban Housing Markets in Germany

The surge in the German house prices starting in 2010 raised fears about the emergence of a speculative bubble. Given a local nature of housing markets, it is not clear to what extent the bubble, if any, is spread across different cities. In this paper, we test for speculative house price bubbles in 127 large German cities over the last 20 years. Along with testing bubbles for each city separately, we apply two new testing approaches: a panel data and principal components version of explosive root tests. We define bubble as an explosive growth of prices that is not supported by the rent increase. Therefore, to check for the existence of bubbles, we examine prices, rents, and price-to-rent ratios. We find evidence for explosive price increases in many cities, especially for the case of newly built housing. However, only in few urban housing markets prices decouple from their fundamental values. On the national level, we do not see evidence for speculative price movements. Overall, we find that the danger of a build-up of a speculative price bubble in the German housing market is rather moderate

The financialisation of rental housing: A comparative analysis of New York City and Berlin

This paper compares how recent waves of private equity real estate investment have reshaped the rental housing markets in New York and Berlin. Through secondary analysis of separate primary research projects, we explore financialisation’s impact on tenants, neighbourhoods, and urban space. Despite their contrasting market contexts and investor strategies, financialisation heightened existing inequalities in housing affordability and stability, and rearranged spaces of abandonment and gentrification in both cities. Conversely cities themselves also shaped the process of financialisation, with weakened rental protections providing an opening to transform affordable housing into a new global asset class. We also show how financialisation’s adaptability in the face of changing market conditions entails ongoing, but shifting processes of uneven development. Comparative studies of financialisation can help highlight geographically disparate, but similar exposures to this global process, thus contributing to a critical urban politics of finance that crosses boundaries of space, sector and scale

Contrasting varieties of private renting: England and Germany

After many years of decline, the private rental sector has increased in England, but remains a relatively small part of the housing market. Free market rents and weak security of tenure are widely regarded by private landlords and policymakers in England as essential preconditions for a commercially viable private rental housing market to exist. And yet in Germany - which has a very large private rented sector - 'soft' rent regulation has been in place since 1971 and tenants have very strong security of tenure, conditions that in England would be seen as inimical to investment in the sector. The aim of this paper is to address this puzzle. It asks: How is it that free market rents and weak security of tenure are perceived to be vital ingredients for a successful private rental sector (PRS) in England, when neither exists in Germany, which has a very large PRS?. © 2010 Taylor and Francis

THE EAEU IN A CHANGING GEOPOLITICAL CONTEXT: PRIORITIES FOR INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

The article focuses on the international activity of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) as an actor in the global economy with a full-fledged legal standing. It analyzes the current state of Eurasian integration within international cooperation and spotlights its correlations with intergovernmental organizations and integration associations. By means of examining the Eurasian Economic Commission’s (EEC’s) regulatory documents, the Main Directions of the EAEU International Activities for 2019 and the agenda of the Russian EAEU presidency in 2018, the author determines key conceptual approaches to evaluation and prognosis of the EAEU integration strategy. By applying comparative analysis, the author studies the experience of other integration associations relevant to the EAEU. The article determines the highestpotential models of EAEU international cooperation with due regard to the unstable global economic and geopolitical context. The author points out priority directions of the EAEU cooperation with an eye on strategic interests of the Russian Federation, differentiating them according to geographic areas of focus and taking into account the current state, risks and opportunities. The author concludes the article by giving recommendations on the implementation of the international agenda of the EAEU on a long-, midand short-term horizon. The author offers her ideas on further development of the EAEU international cooperation with a view to maximizing economic benefits for both Russia and the Union with future partnership in mind

Fifty Shades of State: Quantifying Housing Market Regulations in Germany

The paper aims at measuring the rental housing market regulations in Germany between 1913 and 2015. Four classes of housing policy are considered: Rent controls, tenant protection, rationing of housing, and fostering of social housing. Based on a thorough analysis of federal and regional legislation, for each class, an index is constructed, increasing in degree of regulation. The average of class-specific indices make up a composite index. The index reflects dramatic increases in regulations during and immediately after the World Wars. Likewise, the 2010s are characterized by a surge in virtually all classes of regulations in Germany related to the growing housing scarcity in large cities due to intra- and international migration leading to a geographical mismatch between housing supply and demand

Recombinant modular transporters for cell-specific nuclear delivery of locally acting drugs enhance photosensitizer activity

The search for new pharmaceuticals that are specific for diseased rather than normal cells in the case of cancer and viral disease has raised interest in locally acting drugs that act over short distances within the cell and for which different cell compartments have distinct sensitivities. Thus, photosensitizers (PSs) used in anti-cancer therapy should ideally be transported to the most sensitive subcellular compartments in order for their action to be most pronounced. Here we describe the design, production, and characterization of the effects of bacterially expressed modular recombinant transporters for PSs comprising 1) alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone as an internalizable, cell-specific ligand; 2) an optimized nuclear localization sequence of the SV40 large T-antigen; 3) an Escherichia coli hemoglobin-like protein as a carrier; and 4) an endosomolytic amphipathic polypeptide, the translocation domain of diphtheria toxin. These modular transporters delivered PSs into the nuclei, the most vulnerable sites for the action of PSs, of murine melanoma cells, but not non-MSH receptor-overexpressing cells, to result in cytotoxic effects several orders of magnitude greater than those of nonmodified PSs. The modular fusion proteins described here for the first time, capable of cell-specific targeting to particular subcellular compartments to increase drug efficacy, represent new pharmaceuticals with general application