Public utilities are typically endowed with the following characteristics that are likely to affect their performance: (1) no competitors, (2) political pressures and regulation, (3) soft budget constraints. This paper explores the efficiency of such a utility, the Swiss telecommunication...

The Geneva and Zurich housing markets are characterised by high proportions of foreigners and a large share of rental housing. This provides ideal conditions for testing whether foreigners pay more for the same quality of housing than Swiss households and whether flats in neighbourhoods with...

On June 27–30, 2007, we organized at the Geneva School of Business Administration an International Symposium entitled "Hedonic Methods in Real Estate". During the first day, called the "Swiss hedonic day", Swiss researchers from universities, consulting firms and banks discussed the models...

La valeur des immeubles locatifs est estimÈe de plus en plus frÈquemment selon la mÈthode dite de la valeur de rendement ou valeur actuelle du cash flow net. Cette mÈthode repose sur le postulat qu'un investisseur serait disposÈ â€¡ payer un prix qui peut Ã?tre rentabilisÈ de faÃ?on...

This paper estimates the effect of energy tax (and price) changes on Total Factor Productivity (TFP) and net trade at the industry level, using a panel of industries from European countries covering the period 1990–2003. We investigate the hypothesis that industries with high adaptive capacity...

ERES:conference

In the first five years of the 1980s, 43'000 dwellings were built on average in Switzerland. At the turn of the century, the comparable number was down to 31'000 dwellings per year. A declining trend in housing construction is clearly visible over those twenty years. The vacancy rate fell from...

This paper proposes a method for identifying housing affordability problems. The housing market being imperfect, high rent-to-income ratios might be the result not only of a taste for spacious housing but also of rent premia. Conversely, some households currently in advantageous housing may face...

Equity and neutrality are distinct concepts in housing taxation and weak and strong tenure neutrality should be distinguished. When a tax system is tested for those criteria, the taxes paid by landlords must be included, as they affect the rents renters pay. This paper defines appropriate tests,...