Hidden Income: An Analysis of Tenant Benefits in Subsidized Housing in Austria

Jan Kluge, Dénes Kucsera and Hanno Lorenz

Kyklos, 2025, vol. 78, issue 3, 1185-1210

Abstract: We investigate the highly regulated Austrian rental market and estimate the rent deductions in council flats, cooperatives and dwellings under rent regulation vis‐à‐vis the free market. We find that eligible tenants benefit from significantly cheaper rents. However, as cheap housing is poorly targeted, there are positive income effects even for high‐income households while ineligible tenants in the free market are not systematically better off than the ones whose rents are subsidized or regulated. Our results therefore support the common finding that matching between dwellings and households is inefficient when waiting lists rather than prices are used to allocate flats. As households across the income scale benefit from cheap housing (while others do not), income inequality decreases only slightly.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/kykl.12464

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:kyklos:v:78:y:2025:i:3:p:1185-1210

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0023-5962

Access Statistics for this article

Kyklos is currently edited by Rene L. Frey

More articles in Kyklos from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().