Immigration and Home Ownership: Government Subsidies and Wealth Distribution Effects in Israel

摘要: A wealth‐building, egalitarian argument is persistently used to justify homeownership policies. This paper examines this in light of the Israeli housing market experience during 1990s. Under pressure mass immigration from former USSR, governmental mortgage scheme evolved misleadingly appears as a voucher system. system reconciled two conflicting paradigms: (1) commitment Israel serve safe haven for all Jewish people, (2) rising belief merits economic liberalization. proved be effective creating construction boom, and achieving high rate among immigrants. Yet, analyses presented suggest that it led rapidly increasing prices, chaos distortion market, incurred costs small, disadvantaged groups.