Urban squatting with rent-seeking organizers

Jan Brueckner

Regional Science and Urban Economics, 2013, vol. 43, issue 4, 561-569

Abstract: This paper extends a new line of research on urban squatting that focuses on the role of the squatter organizer. The model replaces the benevolent organizer in the model of Brueckner and Selod (2009) with competing, rent-seeking squatter organizers, a structure that may offer a realistic picture of many cities in less-developed countries. The analysis demonstrates that, compared to the benevolent case, rent-seeking behavior puts more land in the hands of squatters, leading to greater squeezing of the formal housing market, while extracting more defensive expenditures from each squatter household. Additional results show that competition among squatter organizers has much in common with competition in a traditional industry setting, while illustrating how changes in the squatting climate affect the equilibria.

Keywords: Squatting; Rent-seeking; Urbanization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166046213000306
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Urban Squatting with Rent-Seeking Organizers (2012)
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:eee:regeco:v:43:y:2013:i:4:p:561-569

DOI: 10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2013.03.007

Access Statistics for this article

Regional Science and Urban Economics is currently edited by D.P McMillen and Y. Zenou

More articles in Regional Science and Urban Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().