Category: Housing

Recalibrating the savings from the bedroom tax

To be fair to the DWP, ex ante assessment of the impacts of policy change is difficult. Especially when the impacts rely upon behavioural effects that are unknown and unknowable in advance. So when it modelled the savings from the implementation of the so-called bedroom tax it was […]

Britain’s property problem

[Originally posted at LSE British Politics and Policy blog, 14/08/13] This week has brought a slew of news about the UK housing market. Industry commentators are telling us the sector has “turned a corner”: levels of market activity increased significantly in July alongside a sharp upturn in prices. […]

Top blogging on housing policy

A bunch of statistics about the housing market have been published over the last few days. Housing issues have been hitting the headlines in the mainstream media harder than is usually the case.  A number of the key pressure groups have made the point forceful that current developments […]

Forward guidance and managing the housing market

Mark Carney’s importation of the forward guidance approach has been all over the mainstream and social media. But how significant is the announcement that the Bank of England is planning on keeping nominal interest rates as they are until after the next General Election? The comment it has […]

Bedroom tax … and beyond?

We are now beginning to get some insight into the fallout from the Government’s changes to the housing benefit underoccupation rules: the policy that Grant Shapps would like you to call the “spare room subsidy” but most people call the “bedroom tax”. It is a topic I’ve blogged […]

Regulatory possibilities for private renting

Last Thursday I went up to That London to take part in a seminar on Alternatives to regulation. I made a brief, somewhat speculative, presentation around the regulation of private renting, in the light of current debates about behaviour change and behavioural economics. Some of the ideas need […]

Can we, should we, de-residualise social housing?

At the ISA RC43 Conference in Amsterdam last week I took part in a Roundtable discussion convened by Ken Gibb (Glasgow) on the possibilities of deresidualising social housing. I participated alongside Professors Ed Goetz (Minnesota), Rachel Bratt (Tufts) and Mike Darcy (Western Sydney). This is what we were […]