Benefits and Consumption Effects of Public Housing Programs in Belgium: Some Aggregate Results

Abstract

In this paper we estimate some aggregate consumption effects and the benefits of public housing programs in Belgium on the basis of a small sample of individual households. Specifying a Stone-Geary utility function defined on housing and other goods we develop estimates of all required inputs to calculate Hick's equivalent variation. We further analyze changes in consumption patterns as well as the distribution of benefits over the sample. Our results provide the first information on the effects of public housing in Belgium derived from micro data.