"Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, the Netherlands and Sweden have also placed heavy emphasis on home ownership. But Britain is one of the more extreme cases, and the consequences have been profound." Prof. John Muellbauer, University of Oxford.
Britain's distinct property democracy
In the UK, 70% of the home value is now embedded in the land rather than the value - a figure much greater than the OECD average of 40%.
With so much wealth tied up in land, and problems with supply, an affordability crisis has taken root. Housing has become what some have described as a 'wicked' policy problem - tied to electoral interests, generational divides and attitudes to wealth; increasingly acting as a mechanism for transmitting inequality in the country.
Why housing markets fail and how to fix them
Professor of Economics John Muellbauer, who leads the Macroeconomics and Housing project at INET Oxford, works on policy solutions to the housing crisis. His recent INET Oxford Working Paper outlined how Britain can reform it's council tax system, which has been largely untouched since the 1990s.
In a new long-form profile for the University of Oxford's Pulse magazine, John goes into depth on the origins of what he calls Britain's 'distinctively dysfunctional' housing market. He argues wholesale reform is needed, including looking at policies such as right to buy; local authority borrowing; direct public investment; public private partnerships; land value capture and community land trusts.
Read the profile, Why housing markets fail and how to fix them, via the link below.
