Housing policy of the Federal Republic of Germany: Subsidies of the housing industry, 1950 to 1980.

Further losses of tax revenue as a consequence of not contemporary basic values need to be taken into account. “Insofar the research question of the author ‘Subsidies without counter performance?’ should deal with a much discussed problem because one can consider losses of tax revenue and allocation of funds as integral parts conscious political action and not as arbitrary distribution of election gifts. But actually this is a terra incognita.

The extent of housing shortage after the Second World War did not leave room for such discussions. Therefor a systematic debate about the distributional effects of housing policy began relatively late, it started when in spite of the high volume of funding disparities in the provision of housing, the financial restrictions the public sector became more obvious.” (Kornemann, a. cit., p. 42 f.). It is undisputed that the state aid has contributed significantly to the sustainable improvement of the housing situation in the Federal Republic of Germany.

The author summarizes the main results of government incentives for equity capital formation and for rent or load reduction as well as for the development of the volume of housing construction in overviews and concludes with a critique of the services and instruments of official housing policy. Data tables in HISTAT: A.01 Government support measures for equity capital creation, in Mill. DM (1950-1980) A.02 Government support measures for Rental or load reduction, in Mill.

DM (1950-1980) A.03 Volume of housing and construction completions, in billion DM (1950-1980)