Konstantin Kholodilin

• German Institute for Economic Research

In Scotland, the policy landscape around rent controls is rapidly evolving and full of uncertainty. At this critical moment, an international symposium in Edinburgh brought together activists and academics in similar contexts living with or fighting for rent controls from across Europe and North America. This contribution is organised around reflec...

Multivariate Adaptive Regression Spline (MARS) is a simple and powerful non‐parametric machine learning algorithm that automatizes the selection of non‐linear terms in regression models. In this study, we propose using MARS in a spatial regression framework to account for potential non‐linearities and spatial effects in spatial regression models. U...

In 2020, Berlin introduced a rigorous rent-control policy responding to soaring prices by capping rents: the Mietendeckel (rent freeze). The German Constitutional Court revoked the policy only one year later. Although successful in lowering rents during its duration, the consequences for Berlin’s rental market and close-by markets are per se not cl...

The (re-)introduction of tenancy regulation in the form of rent controls, tenant protection or supply rationing is back on the agenda of policymakers in light of rent inflation in many global cities. While rent controls promise short-term relief, economists point to their negative long-run effects on new construction. This study presents new long-r...

The long-run U-shaped patterns of economic inequality are standardly explained by basic economic trends (Piketty's r > g), taxation policies or 'great levellers' such as catastrophes. This article argues that housing policy, and particularly rent control, is a neglected explanatory factor in understanding macro inequality. We hypothesize that rent...

Welfare is traditionally understood as social security decommodifying labour markets or as social investment policies. In the domain of housing, however, welfare for homeowners is largely hidden in the tax codes’ fiscal exemptions. Based on a content analysis of legislation, this article introduces a novel yearly database of 37 countries between 19...

The comparative study of housing decommodification lags behind classical welfare state research, while housing research itself is rich in homeownership studies but lacks comparative accounts of private and social rentals due to missing comparative data. Building on existing works and various primary sources, this study presents a new collection of...

In this study, we investigate the determinants of rental prices in Russian Empire prior to World War I and the variation of housing rents across cities. For our research, we use statistical data on 1232 cities in 1910. Our analysis shows that the urban rents in imperial Russia were affected by such city characteristics as its population structure,...

Housing bubbles and crashes are catastrophic events for economies, implying enormous destruction of housing wealth, financial default risks, construction unemployment, and business cycle downturns. This paper investigates whether governmental housing policies can affect economies' propensity to build up speculative house price bubbles. Specifically...

Following World War I, rent control became a standard policy response to the housing shortage and the resulting rent increases. Typically, economists blame it for creating inefficiencies in the housing market and beyond. We investigate whether rental market regulations (including rent control, protection of tenants from eviction, and housing ration...

Welfare is traditionally understood through social security decommodifying labor markets or social investment policies. In the domain of housing, however, welfare for homeowners is largely hidden in the tax codes' fiscal exemptions. Based on a content analysis of legislation, this paper introduces a novel yearly database of 37 countries between 191...

Research background: We are guided by concepts linking political trust with the perceived rank of people in the wealth hierarchy, their confidence in other people, and the means they use to learn about events at home and abroad. Purpose of the article: The aim of the article is to assess and analyse at the micro level the impact of subjective welfa...

Private rental markets have become increasingly important since the Global Financial Crisis 2008–2009 and rent controls are back on the political agenda. Yet, they have received less attention from housing scholars than homeownership and public housing. This paper presents new data on the development of private tenancy legislation based on a conten...

This article studies housing rents in St. Petersburg from 1880 throuhg 1917, covering an eventful period of Russian and world history. Digitizing over 5,000 rental advertisements, we construct a state-of-the-art index — the first pre-war and pre-Soviet market data index for any Russian city. In 1915, a rent control and tenant protection policy was...

The long-run U-shaped patterns of economic inequality are standardly explained by basic economic trends (Piketty’s r>g), taxation policies, or “great levelers,” like catastrophes. This paper argues that housing policy, in particular rent control, is a neglected explanatory factor in understanding overall inequality. We hypothesize that rent control...

In 2020, Berlin enacted a rigorous rent-control policy: the “Mietendeckel” (rent freeze), aiming to stop rapidly growing rental prices. We evaluate this newly enacted but old-fashionably designed policy by analyzing its immediate supply-side effects. Using a rich pool of rent advertisements reporting asking rents and comprehensive dwelling characte...

The aim of this study is to analyze and assess the impact of institutional factors on political trust in various levels of government (federal, regional and local) in modern Russia. Data and methods. The study is based on microdata from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) “Life in Transition Survey” (LiTS). We examined such...

A relative uniformity of population distribution on the territory of the country is of importance from socio-economic and strategic perspectives. It is especially important in the case of Russia with its densely populated West and underpopulated East. This paper considers changes in population density in Russian regions, which occurred between 1897...

This study introduces a new international longitudinal database of governmental rental market regulations. The regulations are measured using binary variables based on a thorough analysis of real-time, country-specific legislation. Three major restrictive policies are considered: rent control, protection from restriction, and housing rationing. The...

In an urban economy, the distribution of people and real estate prices depends on the location of the central business district of a city. As distance from the city center increases, both prices and population density diminish, for travel costs increase in terms of time and money. As manufacturing gradually leaves the cities, the importance of cons...

This chapter underlines the key role of a city centre in urban space gastronomy. It offers a four-step perspective, ranging from urban to local. First, the example of Saint Petersburg (Russia) shows that gastronomy reflects the major phases of urban growth. Here, eating establishments are used as a proxy for the city centre. Second, the example of...

The (re-)introduction of rent regulation in the form of rent controls, tenant protection or supply rationing is back on the agenda of policymakers in light of rent inflation in many global cities. While rent control as social policy promises short-term relief, economists point to their negative long-run effects on new construction. This paper prese...

Zusammenfassung Zehn Jahre nach der weltweiten Finanz- und Wirtschaftskrise, die ihren Ursprung auf dem US-amerikanischen Immobilienmarkt hatte, steigen angesichts weltweit zunehmender Preise für Wohneigentum die Sorgen vor neuen Immobilienpreisblasen. Dieser Beitrag zeigt auf Basis von OECD-Daten für 20 Länder, dass die Sorge nicht unberechtigt is...

Deutschland ist, ähnlich wie seine deutschsprachigen Nachbarländer, ein Land der Mieterinnen und Mieter. Mit 51,4 Prozent ist die personenbasierte Wohneigentumsquote im Jahr 2017 im europäischen Vergleich besonders niedrig (Eurostat, 2019). In Österreich ist sie mit 55 Prozent unwesentlich höher (2017), in der Schweiz mit 42,5 Prozent niedriger (20...

Second generation rent control seeks to prevent negative quantity effects by exempting newly built units. The artificially lowered rent in the controlled segment makes renting attractive for households that would otherwise not have rented in the market, replacing households with higher willingness to pay for housing. These households bid up prices...

Bisher stand die empirische Forschung zu Mietwohnungsmärkten nicht im Fokus vergleichender Wohnungsforschung. Mit Blick auf die Debatte um steigende Mieten kann vergleichende Forschung zum Mietwohnungsmarkt zum Erkenntnisgewinn beitragen. Neue Daten aus 25 Industrieländern ermöglichen es nun, die Entwicklung der staatlichen Regulierung von Mieten z...

The enormous demographic and economic disturbances caused by World War I forced participating governments to drastically restrict market freedoms. In particular, the state began intervening actively in the housing market. For the first time, Ukraine, as a part of the then Russian Empire, implemented rent controls and protection of tenants from evic...

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine that started in March 2014 led Western countries and Russia to impose economic sanctions on each other, including the euro zone members. The paper investigates the impact of the sanctions on the real side of the economies of Russia and the euro area. The effects of sanctions are analyzed with a structural vec...

In the light of the unconventional monetary policies implemented by most large central banks around the world, there is an intense debate about the potential impact on the prices of capital assets. Particularly in Germany, skepticism about the sustainability of the current policy by the European Central Bank is wide spread and concerns about the em...

Es besteht relativ einhellige Meinung darüber, dass es in Deutschland (vgl. Positionen des IW Köln, ifo Instituts oder DIW Berlin), aber auch in anderen nordeuropäischen Ländern einen Mangel an neuem Wohnungsbau gibt, insbesondere im Bereich großstädtischer und günstiger Mietwohnungen. Als einer der verantwortlichen Faktoren werden häufig staatlich...

In the shadow of homeownership and public housing, social policy through the regulation of private rental markets is a neglected and underestimated ?eld of social policy. This paper, therefore, presents unique new data on the development of private tenancy legislation through the binary coding of rent control, the protection of tenants from evictio...

In this article, we examine whether the local indicators are able to predict the city-level housing prices and rents better than national indicators. For this purpose, we assess the forecasting ability of 126 indicators and 21 types of forecast combinations using a sample of 71 large German cities. There are several predictors that are especially u...

In an uncertain world, decisions by market participants are based on expectations. Therefore, sentiment indicators reflecting expectations have a proven track record at predicting economic variables. However, survey respondents largely perceive the world through media reports. Here, we want to make use of that. We employ a rich dataset provided by...

Concerns about global warming and growing scarcity of fossil fuels require substantial changes in energy consumption patterns and energy systems, as targeted by many countries around the world. One key element to achieve such transformation is to increase energy efficiency of the housing stock. In this context, it is frequently argued that private...

The paper aims at measuring the general state intervention in rental housing market in Germany from 1913 through 2015. Four policy classes are considered: Incentives for social housing, tenant protection, housing rationing, and rent controls. Based on a legislation analysis, for each class an index measuring the degree of regulation is constructed....

New archival evidence on housing rents in Berlin over 1909–1917 is presented. The data are extracted from newspaper announcements and georeferenced. Using hedonic regressions, quality-adjusted rent indices are constructed and employed to analyze the rental dynamics during World War I, when housing market experienced several shocks. The outbreak of...

World War I played a key role in shaping modern housing policy. While in the pre-War era, there was virtually no housing policy, hostilities led to an almost immediate and comprehensive state intervention in the housing market, particularly among those engaged in the war. Originally, Russia went the same way as the other countries. However, after t...

Exchange rate fluctuations strongly affect the Russian economy, given its heavy dependence on foreign trade and investment. In the aftermath of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine that broke out early 2014, the Russian ruble lost 50% of its value against the US dollar. The impact of the conflict on Russia may have been amplified by sanctions im...

New archival evidence on housing rents in Berlin over 1909-1917 is presented. The data are extracted from newspaper announcements and georeferenced. Using hedonic regressions, quality-adjusted rent indices are constructed and employed to analyze the rental dynamics during World War I, when housing market experienced several shocks. The outbreak of...

The paper aims at measuring the rental housing market regulations in Germany between 1913 and 2015. Four classes of housing policy are considered: Rent controls, tenant protection, rationing of housing, and fostering of social housing. Based on a thorough analysis of federal and regional legislation, for each class, an index is constructed, increas...

In this paper, the authors construct a unique data set of Internet offer prices for flats in 48 large European cities across 24 countries. The data collected between January and May 2012 from 33 websites, are drawn from Internet advertisements of dwellings. Using the resulting sample of more than 1,000,000 announcements, the authors compute the qua...

The exchange rate fluctuations strongly affect the Russian economy, given its heavy dependence on foreign trade and investment. Since January 2014, the Ruble lost 50% of its value against the US Dollar. The fall of the currency started with the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The impact of the conflict on Russia may have been amplified by sanc...

Aircraft noise is a particularly problematic source of noise as many airports are located in or near major cities and, as a result, densely populated areas are affected. Data from the Berlin Aging Study II (Berliner Altersstudie II, BASE-II), whose socioeconomic module is based on the longitudinal SocioEconomic Panel (SOEP) study which has been con...

The surge in the German house prices starting in 2010 raised fears about the emergence of a speculative bubble. Given a local nature of housing markets, it is not clear to what extent the bubble, if any, is spread across different cities. In this paper, we test for speculative house price bubbles in 127 large German cities over the last 20 years. A...

The exchange rate fluctuations strongly affect the Russian economy, given its heavy dependence on foreign trade and investment. Since January 2014, the Ruble lost 50% of its value against the US Dollar. The fall of the currency started with the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The impact of the conflict on Russia may have been amplified by sanc...

Before the World War I, the urban rental housing market in Germany could be described as a free and competitive market. The government hardly interfered in the relationships between the landlords and ten- ants. The rents were set freely. During the World War I, the market was hit by several violent shocks. The outbreak of the war led initially to a...

In this paper, we evaluate the forecasting ability of 145 indicators and ten types of forecast combination schemes to predict housing prices and rents in 71 German cities. We are interested in whether local business con fidence indicators facilitate substantial improvements of the forecasts, given the local nature of the real-estate markets. The fo...

This article sheds light on the interaction of media, economic actors, and economic experts. Based on a unique data set of 86,000 news items rated by professional analysts of Media Tenor International and survey data, we first analyze the overall tone of the media, consumers’, firms’, and economic experts’ opinions on the state and outlook of the e...

We examine the effects of an airport expansion on the prices of houses and apartments located under the planned flight paths. We focus on the role of expectations of aircraft noise during the expansion of Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport. The publication of the flight paths can be seen as an exogenous event. It provides local residents and...

The World War I played a key role in shaping modern housing policy. While in the pre-War time virtually no housing policy existed, the beginning of hostilities led to an almost immediate and comprehensive state intervention in the housing market, particularly among those engaged in the war. Despite initially similar conditions and challenges induce...

Concerns about global warming and growing scarcity of fossile fuels require substantial changes in energy consumption patterns and energy systems, as targeted by many countries around the world. One key element to achieve such transformation is to increase energy efficiency of the housing stock. In this context, it is frequently argued that private...

We assess the contribution of macroeconomic uncertainty - approximated by the dispersion of the real GDP survey forecasts - to the ex post and ex ante prediction of stock price bubbles. For a panel of six OECD economies covering 24 years, two alternative binary chronologies of bubble periods are determined and subjected to panel logit regressions c...

In the light of the unconventional monetary policies conducted by the majority of large central banks around the world, there is an intense debate about their potential impact on the prices of capital assets. Particularly in Germany, skepticism about the sustainability of the recent policy by the European Central Bank is widely spread and concerns...

In this paper, the authors construct country-specific chronologies of the house price bubbles for 12 OECD countries over the period 1969:Q1–2009:Q4. These chronologies are obtained using a combination of a fundamental approach and a filter approach. The resulting speculative bubble chronology is the one which provides the highest concordance betwee...

In this paper, we develop a market screening model to detect inconstancies in price changes. Although there is a long history of industrial organization research of collusion, price setting behavior, and conduct — a robust model to detect structural changes in market structure was missing so far. Our non-parametric approach closes this gap and can...