Contribution to the Measurement of the Efficiency of the Subsidised Housing System in Chile

Abstract

This article offers the results of an empirical exploration of the efficiency of Chilean housing policy, characterised by a subsidiarity approach that, despite maintaining a sustained increase in year-on-year investment, fails to reduce the housing deficit in a structural way. In addition, the housing programmes of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development do not have systems for evaluating the socio-economic and/or housing effects of the housing they finance. The only monitoring mechanism that this ministry is responsible for is based on identifying whether the resources were transferred to the private sector and whether the financed initiatives were carried out. In the absence of a system for monitoring and verifying the effectiveness of the subsidy system, the article develops an exploratory evaluation based on a multiple linear regression aggregated at the national level with municipal units as comparative observations and a geographically weighted regression study applied to the 7 main cities to assess whether the provision of housing subsidies is statistically significantly related to the socio-economic level of the beneficiaries or to reducing the deficit. The results indicate that these relationships are not statistically significant, which makes it necessary to review whether the Chilean subsidy model is actually effective and what alternatives can be followed to resolve its contradictions.