Abstract
Housing subsidies have become major programs for the poor who consume inadequate amounts of housing in many developed countries. Nonetheless, it isn’t so obvious if public subsidized housing programs have any effect on whether the poor have their own housing. It remains possible that they are ineffectual, because they crowds out privately-provided housing. This paper investigates whether public rental housing crowds out private rental housing, using the census place data from the Housing and Land Survey of Japan and the Population Census. The empirical result reveals that rental housing provided by local government crowds out less private rental housing than rental housing provided by public corporation does. An additional unit of housing provided by local government raises occupied housing stock by 0.8, while one more unit of rental housing provided by public corporation increase occupied housing stock by 0.7. Rented houses provided by local government seem to be a little more effective at providing housing units to people who otherwise would not have their own one.
