Summary: | 碩士 === 淡江大學 === 產業經濟學系碩士班 === 101 === In the past twenty years, homeownership rate and income inequality in Taiwan have been increasing significantly. As we know, income is always a very important factor in housing decision. However, homeownership rate has been increasing substantially while the gap between the rich and the poor in Taiwan is increasing. This phenomenon leads us to study the causality of homeownership rate and income inequality in Taiwan’s 22 regions. By using data from the Survey of Family Income and Expenditure of DGBAS, we calculate homeownership rates and Gini coefficients for each of the Taiwan’s 22 regions from 1982 to 2006. Moreover, we use not only the panel VAR model for the estimation, but also the spatial panel VAR model, which considers the spillover effect across regions for the variables concerned. We also conduct Granger causality test and impulse response function after VAR estimation. The empirical results of spatial panel VAR estimation show that regional income inequality has no influence on regional homeownership rate in Taiwan’s 22 regions. On the other hand, regional homeownership rate and the spatial lags of income inequality have positive influences on regional income inequality in Taiwan regions. Moreover, the spatial lags of regional homeownership rate have negative influences on regional income inequality in Taiwan regions and the spatial spillover effect does exist in regional income inequality in Taiwan’s 22 regions.
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