Developments in the provision of housing finance in the UK
Recommended reading for providers and designers of housing. The results of the housing finance changes in the UK included a wider range of institutions involved, significant developments in the source and delivery of that finance, as well as important changes in government policy opening up social housing to the private finance market, targeting subsidy more directly at particular groups of individuals and introduction of specific supply subsidies to new private rented sector. The considerable unease with certain outcomes is dealt with.
Efficiency and Stability of Housing Finance Systems: A Comparison of the United Kingdom and the United States
Abstract The U.K. and U.S. housing finance systems are two of the world's most efficient. Yet both systems exhibited instability during the past decade, as reflected in high rates of individual borrower and lending institution default. The difficulties stemmed primarily from the combination of macroeconomic policy instability and preexisting housing or financial market constraints. In the United Kingdom, volatility in monetary and fiscal policy interacted with constraints on housing supply and tenure choice to produce a speculative boom and bust in house prices. In the United States, constraints on mortgage contracts led to the insolvency of specialized housing lenders when there was an abrupt change in monetary policy. Three important lessons can be learned from these events. First, important linkages exist among housing markets, the housing finance system, and the broader economy. Second, although liberalization benefits the financial system, it can exacerbate preexisting market distortions. Finally, th...
Deliberative Democracy and the Resource Curse: A Nationwide Experiment in Tanzania
Oil and gas discoveries in developing countries are often associated with short-sighted economic policies and, in response, calls to insulate resource management from populist impulses. We report on a randomized experiment testing methods to overcome this apparent tension between sound resource governance and democratic politics. Soon after Tanzania’s discovery of major natural gas reserves, we invited a nationally representative sample of voters to an intensive public deliberation of policy options featuring nationally recognized experts and small-group discussions. Democratic deliberation reinforced the public’s strong preference for rapid spending of gas revenues, but also increased support for various prudential and economically orthodox measures, including independent oversight of gas revenues, limits on government borrowing, and selling gas abroad rather than subsidizing fuel at home. These effects were driven by deliberation per se, rather than a pure information treatment, and show no evidence of contamination by facilitatoror peer-effects in group deliberations. www.cgdev.org Justin Sandefur, Nancy Birdsall, James Fishkin, and Mujobu Moyo