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Vox:
Regulation is to blame for England's surging house prices

10 April 2016

It costs a relatively large amount of money to buy a house in the UK - something readers from the UK will almost certainly agree with. But economists differ over why this is. This column argues that strict planning regulations are a prime culprit for sky-high prices and that without any real regulatory change, it is the young that will suffer.

New causal evidence on the impact of supply constraints on house prices shows land use regulation to be a major culprit of England's current housing affordability crisis. Absent regulation, house prices would be lower by over a third and considerably less volatile. Young households are the obvious losers, yet macroeconomic stability is also impaired and productivity may suffer from constrained labour supply to the thriving cities where demand is highest.

This article was published by Vox on April 10, 2016
Link to article here

Related publications
The Impact of Supply Constraints on House Prices in England, C. A. L. Hilber and Wouter Vermeulen, Economic Journal 126(591): 358–405, March 2016.
The Impact of Supply Constraints on House Prices in England, Christian A. L. Hilber and Wouter Vermeulen, Urban Programme [SERC] Discussion Paper No.119, September 2012

Related links
Christian Hilber webpage
Urban Programme webpage

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