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City A.M.:
Planning liberalisation is the closest thing there is to an economic silver bullet

16 September 2014

Liberalisation of planning could therefore lower house prices and rents directly, and there would be a direct boost to building growth. But the real gains would come through a fall in the cost burden associated with property. For sectors like childcare, social care, restaurants and even many office-based industries, high rents and property prices raise prices for consumers, with a dynamic strain on our growth prospects brought about by a reduction in competition and innovation. This is especially true in the retail sector, where planning laws, supplemented with ''town centre first'' policies, have led to much smaller stores than in countries like the US. On conservative assumptions, Paul Cheshire from the LSE has estimated that the effects of these self-induced policies may have lowered productivity in the retail sector by as much as 20 per cent - raising the cost of our shopping directly, while depressing the wages of the often low-skilled employees in the sector.

This article was published by City A.M. on September 16, 2014
Link to article here

Related links
Paul Cheshire webpage
Spatial Economics Research Centre (SERC) website
Paul Cheshire CEP publications webpage