Despite the central place that Israel\u2019s housing policy has taken since the 2011 mass protests, and the various policy alternatives that have been considered, one issue has never been placed for public awareness and debate: The fact that Israel \u2013 alone among all the members of the OECD \u2013 has a land tenure system with overwhelming dominance of\u00a0 national ownership. Furthermore, national land is managed and released to the development market through a single, central national authority.\u00a0 A question never addressed in public discourse is whether, or how, national land ownership affects Israel\u2019s very high housing prices. Is it possible that the very fact of national ownership is causing housing prices to rise, rather than lowering them? At the time this research report is published, the ministries responsible for planning, housing, and national land have been reshuffled. There may thus be a modest window crack for rethinking. We submit this research report to the decision-makers and the general public.<\/p>\n
The direct research question of this\u00a0 probe is: How does the Israel Land Authority\u2019s policies for land release by means of competitive tenders affect the cost of land for housing? At the core\u00a0 of this report are the findings of an empirical analysis, the first of its kind, which tries to crack this elusive question. To this end, thousands of residential tenders have been analyzed. By means of statistical tools, we attempt to identify the likely impact of the tender system on housing prices, while controlling for a set of selected variables. However, this research is just a pilot for analyzing many related questions through application of more empirical methods of analysis.\u00a0 In our search for funding sources to extend this research as initially planned, we have been disappointed time and again. Is the \u201celephant in the room\u201d of Israel\u2019s housing policy and prices destined to remain invisible, despite our efforts?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Despite the central place that Israel\u2019s housing policy has taken since the 2011 mass protests, and the various policy alternatives that have been considered, one issue has never been placed for public awareness and debate: The fact that Israel \u2013 alone among all the members of the OECD \u2013 has a land tenure system with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16433,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[228,60],"post_category":[],"class_list":["post-38564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-report","tag-228","tag-israel"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n