Principal Investigator: Craig E. Jones (UBC)
Co-investigators: Thomas Davidoff (UBC), Paul Kershaw (UBC)
UBC RDC (investigators, staff and students): Paul Boniface Akaabre
We will fill descriptive data gaps in knowledge about Canada’s housing supply with a geographical focus on BC and Ontario – regions where the country’s largest urban centres face particularly acute supply pressures. These regions demonstrate enough difference and common ground for comparative studies about the levers that have shaped supply in Canada to date, along with possible adaptations and innovations.
Imbalances have led to considerable policy experimentation by different levels of Canadian governments. These variations in approach have provided an unusual opportunity to evaluate policy empirically. To explore how different policies affect the extent to which supply is balanced along the different dimensions, we will evaluate quasi-experiments and case studies stemming from policy changes that affect some but not all jurisdictions, or differences in policies/practices between like jurisdictions, so that we can deploy methods that isolate cause from correlation.
The data analysis will primarily be carried out using SPSS to produce descriptive statistics. Access to Canadian microdata is therefore required to generate these statistics at the CSD, CA, CMA or CD levels depending on the need for aggregation to protect privacy. Also, we intend to create statistics that allow us to understand the dynamics between the characteristics of variables captured in the property file and variables in the ownership file hence the need to get access to the Canadian microdata.
With a timeline going from 2020 to 2025, the specific objectives of the proposed research are to:
- Investigate relationships between non-resident owners and residential property values and characteristics in “Superstar Cities”
- Understand residential property ownership markets
- Modelling property ownership and tax regimes