The distribution of benefits among public housing tenants in Hong Kong and related policy issues

Abstract

This paper is an analysis of the distribution of benefits among public housing tenants in Hong Kong, which constitute 45% of the total population. It was discovered that the program was inefficient not because it made public housing tenants consume too much housing, but because it made the rich tenants consume too little of it and the poor tenants consume too much of it. Poor public housing tenants obtained more benefits than did rich ones, but many of the poor were not in the public housing program. Our study also found that public housing tenants were a selected group and appropriate measures were adopted to correct for estimation bias. The paper also addresses some of the policy matters which have been raised in a recent government review of existing public housing allocation policies.