Decisions to Renovate and to Move

Housing renovation is the main alternative means of housing supply besides construction of new housing. Relatively little is known about the factors that affect decisions by households about whether to renovate and which sort of renovations to undertake. These questions are explored empirically. Separate analyses are conducted of the decision to undertake "major structural renovations" as opposed to other sorts (such as remodeling the kitchen or bathroom), and also of the decision to conduct renovations that add to the living space of the housing unit. Financial, household and geographic factors affecting this decision are analyzed econometrically.

The Inversion of the Land Gradient in the Inner City of Haifa, Israel

While suburbanization and decentralization are familiar concepts in urban economics, there is a possibility that land gradients will not simply flatten over time, but actually invert themselves. This would mean that the traditional CBD or downtown ceases to act as the pinnacle or nucleus of the land/housing pricing function within the metropolitan area. Such a possibility has been noted in the theoretical literature and has been demonstrated empirically in a few cases. Such an urban ‘‘inversion’’ is shown to have occurred in Haifa, Israel. Beginning in the 1960s, the stock of privately-owned cars grew in Israel at one of the most rapid rates ever seen in any industrial country, with relatively little growth in transportation infrastructure.

The Institutional Structure and the Cost of Bank Loans: an International Comparison

In recent years international comparisons emphasized the importance of institutional and legal factors in capital market development and the performance of private firms. Here that approach is applied to the pricing of bank loans. Loan rates depend on contract parameters such as risk, the existence of covenants and loan size. Syndicate structure and the number of lenders also determine the cost of borrowing. Loan prices are also negatively impacted if the lending banks operate as part of larger conglomerates. Loan prices are also shown to depend on a number of institutional factors, such as the quality of protection of creditor rights and the quality of law enforcement. Curiously, we find that contracts with customers in "French tradition" countries were priced lower, as if having lower risk, than others, other things held equal. This is not in line with other segments of the literature on international capital market differences and institutional factors. It suggests that differences across legal traditions are more complicated than previously understood

Water policy in California and Israel

Water policies throughout the world often avoid market-determined allocations. In this article, we focus on case studies of Israel and California. Despite major cultural and political differences, it is found that water is heavilty controlled through similar administrative mechanisms in both areas. Moreover, in both cases, these controls have led to inefficient allocation schemes favoring agriculture at the expense of other uses. This article examines the institutional factors that have led to such controls, and argues that adopting a new regulatory framework similar to that used to regulate electricity can still meet social concerns while dramatically improving economic efficiency.Water-supply - California ; California ; Israel