Purpose Rent control may lead to inefficient use of subsidized apartments. This paper aims to empirically investigate if this phenomenon exists under the Swedish rent control regime. Design/methodology/approach The quantitative part of the study uses data from Statistics Sweden to calculate, for all municipalities in Sweden, the fraction of residential rental units where no one is living permanently. The qualitative part augments the quantitative results with a survey where representatives for 14 municipal and four private property companies in small, mid-sized and large municipalities were interviewed. Findings This paper finds that a surprisingly large fraction of the rental housing stock, about 9.4% on a national level, is underused in the way that rent is paid but no one is living permanently in the apartment according to the official Swedish population register. The underutilization rate is negatively correlated to the median rent in a municipality. Research limitations/implications The study is limited to Swedish data. This paper does not explore the potential effects of regional economic and demographic conditions on the measure of underutilization. Practical implications A policy implication of the present results is that underutilization of the Swedish rental housing stock can be reduced by limiting the supply of rent-controlled housing to households that are in economic or social need. Originality/value Numerous papers have analysed various aspects of rent control. However, few papers have empirically analysed how a general rent control system where all tenants, irrespective of economic or social need, have access to rent controlled apartments may contribute to housing inefficiencies. This research contributes to the empirical literature on rent control by analysing the relationship between non-targeted housing subsidies and underutilization of housing units.

Despite the widely-recognized importance of student housing in educational settings, the housing experience of university students remains understudied. This study attempts to assess the residential satisfaction in student housing in Stockholm, Sweden and the indicators which predict residential satisfaction in this context. Moreover, it explores whether residential satisfaction varies between different socio-demographic groups. A list of satisfaction indictors was identified through reviewing literature and a number of semi-structured interviews, thereafter data was collected from a questionnaire survey with simple random sampling. The responses were analysed through descriptive analysis, stepwise regression, t-test and analysis of variance. The results show that the current occupants are generally satisfied with the student housing in Stockholm. Seven indicators appear to be predictors of satisfaction, among which the strongest ones are kitchen facilities, cleanliness and accessibility to public transport stations. In terms of socio-demographic characteristics, those with a shorter residential duration are found to be more satisfied. Furthermore, studio residents are more satisfied than corridor-room residents.

Field-theory simulation by the complex Langevin method offers an alternative to conventional sampling techniques for exploring the forces driving biomolecular liquid-liquid phase separation. Such simulations have recently been used to study several polyampholyte systems. Here, we formulate a field theory corresponding to the hydrophobic/polar (HP) lattice protein model, with finite same-site repulsion and nearest-neighbor attraction between HH bead pairs. By direct comparison with particle-based Monte Carlo simulations, we show that complex Langevin sampling of the field theory reproduces the thermodynamic properties of the HP model only if the same-site repulsion is not too strong. Unfortunately, the repulsion has to be taken weaker than what is needed to prevent condensed droplets from assuming an artificially compact shape. Analysis of a minimal and analytically solvable toy model hints that the sampling problems caused by repulsive interaction may stem from loss of ergodicity.

A deterministic annealing (DA) method is presented for solving the multi-robot routing problem with min–max objective. This is an NP-hard problem belonging to the multi-robot task allocation set of problems where robots are assigned to a group of sequentially ordered tasks such that the cost of the slowest robot is minimized. The problem is first formulated in a matrix form where the optimal solution of the problem is the minimum-cost permutation matrix without any loops. The solution matrix is then found using the DA method is based on mean field theory applied to a Potts spin model which has been proven to yield near-optimal results for NP-hard problems. Our method is bench-marked against simulated annealing and a heuristic search method. The results show that the proposed method is promising for small-medium sized problems in terms of computation time and solution quality compared to the other two methods.

In this study, inspired by the work of Nakazato and Kitahara (1980 Prog. Theor. Phys. 64 2261), we consider the theoretical problem of tracer particle diffusion in an environment of di. using hardcore interacting crowder particles. The tracer particle has a different diffusion constant from the crowder particles. Based on a transformation of the generating function, we provide an exact formal expansion for the tracer particle probability density, valid for any lattice in the thermodynamic limit. By applying this formal solution to dynamics on a regular Bravais lattice we provide a closed form approximation for the tracer particle diffusion constant which extends the Nakazato and Kitahara results to include also b.c.c. and f.c.c. lattices. Finally, we compare our analytical results to simulations in two and three dimensions.

Purpose - This paper aims to examine tenure choice in the Swedish housing market with explicit consideration of households' credit constraints in combination with age and ethnic background.Design/methodology/approach - Observations of some 940,000 households were used to analyse the Stockholm housing market in 2008, prior to the implementation of the mortgage cap. The tenure choice models were estimated using a two-stage instrument variable (IV) logit and probit model with ownership or renting as outcome.Findings - The results suggest, as expected, that being financially restricted is negatively related to owning. In particular, financial restriction is more binding for young households and households with a foreign background than for other types of households. These two sub-groups are also known to have difficulties establishing themselves in the rental housing market, and are therefore specifically vulnerable to further financial constraints such as borrowing restrictions or amortization requirements.Originality/value - The government in Sweden has become concerned with the rapid growth in household indebtedness. As a response, a 0.85 loan-to-value ratio mortgage cap was introduced in 2010. However, critics are concerned with the effects this may have on the possibility for certain households to purchase a dwelling.

PurposeThis explorative case study focuses on property investment decision making from a behavioural perspective at the very microlevel. The study contributes to an understanding of how property investors manage the decision‐making process, including organizational aspects, property valuation, and financial management.Design/methodology/approachApplying a qualitative approach, the authors analyse a very large transaction that occurred in the Swedish property market in 2008. In an open bid transaction, properties of Vasakronan Corporation were sold for SEK41.1 billion (€4.3 billion). Managers in both the purchasing company and the consortium making the second highest bid were interviewed. The authors were encouraged to speak freely, but also used an interview guide with a number of themes as well as specific questions.FindingsThe findings reveal the characteristics of two types of property investment decision‐making behaviour with respect to how actors organize the work, use external consultants, value the properties, and secure the financing necessary for a final bid.Practical implicationsCreditors, analysts, and appraisers may benefit from the insight that property investment decision makers can use different approaches in determining their final bids.Originality/valueThe authors use a qualitative empirical approach in analysing an extraordinarily large property transaction from a buyer's point of view and presents detailed information about this transaction as well as general insights into actual behaviour rarely examined in the property investment literature.

Earlier research have concluded that high house prices, relative to household income and wealth, and a tax on imputed rent are the most important causes of a countries low ownership rate. Given the ...

Herein we provide a closed form perturbative solution to a general M-node network susceptible-infected-susceptible (SIS) model using the transport rates between nodes as a perturbation parameter. We separate the dynamics into a short-time regime and a medium-to-long-time regime. We solve the short-time dynamics of the system and provide a limit before which our explicit, analytical result of the first-order perturbation for the medium-to-long-time regime is to be employed. These stitched calculations provide an approximation to the full temporal dynamics for rather general initial conditions. To further corroborate our results, we solve the mean-field equations numerically for an infectious SIS outbreak in New Zealand (NZ, Aotearoa) recomposed into 23 subpopulations where the virus is spread to different subpopulations via (documented) air traffic data, and the country is internationally quarantined. We demonstrate that our analytical predictions compare well to the numerical solution.

If housing market rent control is completely eliminated, welfare gains may arise from tenant redistribution. The amount of such welfare gains is estimated at approximately SEK 20 billion (approximately USD 3 billion) for inner Stockholm. In addition, welfare gains may arise from the production of new housing. We demonstrate that total deregulation is preferable to partial deregulation limited to new housing. Furthermore, inefficient overproduction of new housing would follow partial deregulation. Tenants facing rent increases if rent control were phased out would suffer welfare losses, and should be compensated to fulfill the Pareto criterion. Various compensation models could be used, as analyzed here. The amounts necessary to fully compensate tenants in attractive submarkets may be substantial. The Pareto criterion is not necessarily a desirable guideline for politicians if it implies huge wealth redistribution; it is still, however, a natural criterion in connection to all welfare economic analysis.

When the rental market in Sweden is described in general terms it is said that in 1972 the commercial rental market was deregulated while the residential rental market continued to be regulated. This is however not the whole truth, because even though the landlord is free to set the rent in an empty office, there are rules concerning the rent that the landlord can demand when a lease is to be renewed and also rather detailed procedural rules. As the rental contract in Sweden is rather short, typically 3 years for office buildings, the rules concerning renewal of contracts are important for the working of the market. The hypothesis to be developed in the article is that the rental legislation increases the risk for the landlord and makes it rational for the landlord to accept a rent below the rent that would prevail if the parties had contractual freedom regarding renewal of leases. This hypothesis is visualized in a game theoretical model. The hypothesis is confirmed by preliminary studies from the rental markets in the Nordic countries. Differences between rent levels in renewed leases and newly signed leases are significantly lower in the other Nordic countries (Norway, Finland and Denmark) compared to Sweden. This may be explained by the relative contractual freedom between the landlord and tenant in the other Nordic countries compared to Sweden. In the end of the article the authors discus alternative procedural rules in Sweden, and what the authors consider to be a reasonable balance between the interest of landlords and tenants in renewal of leases.

The spherical crystalline lenses in the eyes of many fish species are well-suited models for studies on how natural selection has influenced the evolution of the optical system. Many of these lenses exhibit multiple focal lengths when illuminated with monochromatic light. Similar multifocality is present in a majority of vertebrate eyes, and it is assumed to compensate for the defocusing effect of longitudinal chromatic aberration. In order to identify potential optical advantages of multifocal lenses, we studied their information transfer capacity by computer modeling. We investigated four lens types: the lens of Astatotilapia burtoni, an African cichlid fish species, an equivalent monofocal lens, and two artificial multifocal lenses. These lenses were combined with three detector arrays of different spectral properties: the cone photoreceptor system of A. burtoni and two artificial arrays. The optical properties compared between the lenses were longitudinal spherical aberration curves, point spread functions, modulation transfer functions, and imaging characteristics. The multifocal lenses had a better balance between spatial and spectral information than the monofocal lenses. Additionally, the lens and detector array had to be matched to each other for optimal function.