Evidence, What Evidence? The Foundations for Housing Policy

Developments in housing policy and practice have been marked by strong ideological stances and a persistent unwillingness to clarify ends and means, so that key policy questions remain unresolved. Evidence can, and does, impact on policy, but only under certain conditions; for example, if it relates to a specific policy question, is restricted to the interests of a single government department and, especially, if it implies reductions in public spending. Moreover, housing's complexity and relationship with a range of policy areas requires a linked perspective, at a local scale. A predominance of sector-specific, cross-sectional and qualitative research, allied to inadequate data impede the production of evidence to meet this challenge.     

Asymmetries in housing and financial market institutions and EMU

Despite convergence pressures, differences in housing and financialmarket institutions across the 15 member states of the EuropeanUnion are still enormous. This paper argues that they have profoundeffects on the responsiveness of output and inflation in thedifferent countries to changes in short-term interest rates,as well as to asset-market shocks of external origin. The economicreasoning behind this claim is set out and the institutionaldifferences are described. The paper assesses the sometimesconflicting empirical evidence on this issue. Barriers to convergenceand implications for labour-market flexibility are discussed.The UK, Ireland, Finland and Sweden tend to cluster at one extremeof the relevant institutional characteristics. The paper concludeswith a set of proposals for institutional reforms which wouldsignificantly reduce the tensions within EMU and the potentialfor instability in these economies entailed by EMU membership.