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With so many conflicting views and a balance to be struck between growth and conservation, what housing market outcomes might be regarded as a success for policymakers? This book attempts to give at least some answers, concluding with a list of criteria by which success might be judged along with a list of policy recommendations.
Perspectives are essays on big ideas by leading writers, each given free rein and a modest word limit to reframe an issue of great contemporary interest. –Diane Coyle, Series Editor
Housing is a fundamental necessity, and yet it is generally acknowledged that we have a ‘housing crisis’ in the UK. The housing market has worked well for many people (who have enjoyed the steeply rising values of their homes), which is why change, especially new building, is resisted. But for increasing numbers it now works less well, as home ownership is out of reach. Government finds it easier to introduce short-term policies that are not really effective, meaning that the long-term issues are never really resolved. Reforms are urgently needed.
There are many national policy aims, including decent homes for all, protection of the green belt, better design of buildings and places, avoidance of price volatility, and intergenerational fairness. We also have an existing housing stock that is wrongly located, and some of the housing we do have is of poor quality. With so many conflicting views, strong local feelings and a balance to be struck between growth and conservation, what housing market outcomes might be regarded as a success for policymakers? This book dispels some common myths, and provides answers in the form of policy recommendations.
Praise for Housing: Where’s the Plan?
The apparent inability to build more housing is the UK’s biggest policy failure. The system of land-use planning that largely explains what has happened generates indefensible economic distortions. Yet this is far more than just an economic policy failure. It is also a profoundly social one, since it thwarts family formation, the foundation of a fulfilled and purposive life. Kate Barker provides both a clear analysis of the problem and sensible, albeit modest, reforms. These represent the very least that needs to be done.-Martin Wolf, Financial Times
This succinct presentation of the housing challenge we have ourselves managed to create sets out clearly the inter- and intragenerational debate required. Politics is stuck between those for whom the current system works and those for whom it does not. This is the strongest description of this dilemma I have seen for a while. It must be read and debated – or read with despair. –Bridget Rosewell, Senior Partner, Volterra Partners
No one can speak to the housing supply issues facing the UK with the same authority as Kate Barker. This clear concise analysis of UK housing issues makes a series of policy recommendations that are both feasible and desirable. An excellent account of the state of UK housing – admirable in its coherence, clarity and precision.- David Miles, Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee
Dame Kate Barker is a former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee. She led two influential policy reviews in the mid 2000s: one on housing supply and one on planning. Among other roles, she is now a senior adviser at Credit Suisse and a non-executive director of Taylor Wimpey plc and the Yorkshire Building Society.
We invited eighteen leading British thinkers on the reform of the world financial system and what a financial system is for to form a Future of Finance Group. They included journalists, academics, financiers and officials from the Financial Services Authority, the Bank of England and the Treasury. The result is this book.
This book looks at house prices over the long term in several countries including the UK, the US, France, Holland, Norway, Germany and Australia to find out what has happened to house prices and why. The author illustrates his findings with authoritative data on trends and provides intriguing details including a century long index of UK house prices, an analysis of the value of the White House and a fascinating four-hundred-year story of houses in Amsterdam.
If climate action remains marginal at this late hour, it will fail. In dismay at the inaction of governments, citizen groups are showing how people can use their real power and authentic voice to drive change. In the workplace, in politics and in local communities, people are stepping forward both to demand transformation and to make it happen.
The gap between important real-word problems and the workhorse mathematical model-based economics being taught to students has become a chasm. This book examines what economists need to bring to their jobs, and the way in which economics education in universities could be improved to fit them better for the real world.
