A Right to Housing or Imperfect Competition and International Trade

A Right to Housing: Foundation for a New Social Agenda

Author: Rachel Bratt

In the 1949 Housing Act, Congress declared "a decent home and a suitable living environment for every American family" our national housing goal. Today, little more than half a century later, upwards of 100 million people in the United States live in housing that is physically inadequate, unsafe, overcrowded, or unaffordable.

The contributors to A Right to Housing consider the key issues related to America's housing crisis, including income inequality and insecurity, segregation and discrimination, the rights of the elderly, as well as legislative and judicial responses to homelessness. The book offers a detailed examination of how access to adequate housing is directly related to economic security.

With essays by leading activists and scholars, this book presents a powerful and compelling analysis of the persistent inability of the U.S. to meet many of its citizens' housing needs, and a comprehensive proposal for progressive change.

Table of Contents:

	Why a right to housing is needed and makes sense	1
1	The economic environment of housing : income inequality and insecurity	20
2	Housing affordability : one-third of a nation shelter-poor	38
3	Segregation and discrimination in housing	61
4	Pernicious problems of housing finance	82
5	Federal housing subsidies : who benefits and why?	105
6	The permanent housing crisis : the failures of conservatism and the limitations of liberalism	139
7	Federally-assisted housing in conflict : privatization or preservation?	163
8	The case for a right to housing	177
9	The role of the courts and a right to housing	193
10	Housing organizing for the long haul : building on experience	213
11	Social ownership	240
12	Social financing	261
13	The elderly and a right to housing	279
14	Opening doors : what a right to housing means for women	296
15	Responses to homelessness : past policies, future directions, and a right to housing	316
16	Community development corporations : challenges in supporting a right to housing	340
17	Between devolution and the deep blue sea : what's a city or state to do?	364
18	Housing and economic security	399

Books about economics: The Good Treats Cookbook for Dogs or The Bartenders Guide

Imperfect Competition and International Trade

Author: Gene M Ed Grossman

The last decade has seen an important extension of the theory of international trade to include imperfectly competitive market structures. This book collects 19 of the most influential articles on trade with imperfect competition, providing ready access to current research by top-level economists.

Following an introduction. by Grossman that surveys the literature, the readings cover such important topics as the causes and consequences of intraindustry trade, the effects of tariffs and quantitative restrictions in oligopolistic settings, the welfare consequences of strategic trade policies, the raison d'être for multinational corporations, the determinants of innovation, and the interaction between technological progress and trade.

The recent work on trade incorporating imperfect competition can help to explain the high volume of intraindustry trade between similarly endowed countries and can account for the increasing importance of multinational corporations in the conduct of international trade. It can predict the emergence of cross-country technology gaps and can help to identify the determinants of dynamic comparative advantage. The explorations of trade with imperfect competition have also deepened substantially our understanding of the costs and benefits of trade policy. We now know why governments may be motivated to assist their national firms in global oligopolistic competitions, and we also know the limitations of the arguments in support of strategic trade policies.

Gene M. Grossman is Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Contributors: Richard E. Baldwin, James A. Brander, Avinash K. Dixit,Jonathan Eaton, Wilfred J. Ethier, Gene M. Grossman, Elhanan Helpman, Kala Krishna, Paul R. Krugman, James R. Markusen, Victor Norman, Luis A. Rivera-Batiz, Paul M. Romer, Barbara J. Spencer, Anthony J. Venables Shmuel Ben Zvi.