IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/niesru/v245y2018i1pr20-r33.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Housing, Debt and the Economy: A Tale of Two Countries

Author

Listed:
  • John Muellbauer

Abstract

In housing affordability levels and volatility, there could hardly be a greater contrast than between the UK and Germany. Differences in history, institutions and policies are explored in this paper. Residential housing supply has been far more expansionary in Germany and mortgage credit more tightly regulated. A sensibly regulated rental market and stable German house prices have combined to leave the rental sector with over half of tenures. Policy failures in the UK have resulted in widening intergenerational inequality, increased social exclusion, adversely affected productivity and growth and raised the risk of financial instability. Policy lessons are drawn for the UK, which go far beyond the remit of the immediately responsible Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

Suggested Citation

  • John Muellbauer, 2018. "Housing, Debt and the Economy: A Tale of Two Countries," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 245(1), pages 20-33, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:niesru:v:245:y:2018:i:1:p:r20-r33
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ner.sagepub.com/content/245/1/R20.abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Valérie Chauvin & John Muellbauer, 2018. "Consumption, household portfolios and the housing market in France," Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques (INSEE), issue 500-501-5, pages 157-178.
    2. Emilio Fernandez-Corugedo & John Muellbauer, 2006. "Consumer credit conditions in the United Kingdom," Bank of England working papers 314, Bank of England.
    3. Janine Aron & John V. Duca & John Muellbauer & Keiko Murata & Anthony Murphy, 2012. "Credit, Housing Collateral, And Consumption: Evidence From Japan, The U.K., And The U.S," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 58(3), pages 397-423, September.
    4. John Muellbauer, 2005. "Property Taxation and the Economy after the Barker Review," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(502), pages 99-117, March.
    5. Muellbauer, John, 1992. "Anglo-German differences in housing market dynamics : The role of institutions and macro economic policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(2-3), pages 539-548, April.
    6. Muellbauer, John & Geiger, Felix & Rupprecht, Manuel, 2016. "The housing market, household portfolios and the German consumer," Working Paper Series 1904, European Central Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. zu Ermgassen, Sophus & Drewniok, Michal & Bull, Joseph & Walker, Christine Corlet & Mancini, Mattia & Ryan-Collins, Josh & Serrenho, André Cabrera, 2022. "A home for all within planetary boundaries: pathways for meeting England’s housing needs without transgressing national climate and biodiversity goals," OSF Preprints 5kxce, Center for Open Science.
    2. Josh Ryan-Collins, 2021. "Breaking the housing–finance cycle: Macroeconomic policy reforms for more affordable homes," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(3), pages 480-502, May.
    3. zu Ermgassen, Sophus O.S.E. & Drewniok, Michal P. & Bull, Joseph W. & Corlet Walker, Christine M. & Mancini, Mattia & Ryan-Collins, Josh & Cabrera Serrenho, André, 2022. "A home for all within planetary boundaries: Pathways for meeting England's housing needs without transgressing national climate and biodiversity goals," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    4. Josh Ryan‐Collins, 2021. "Private Landed Property and Finance: A Checkered History," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 80(2), pages 465-502, March.
    5. Cheshire, Paul & Carozzi, Felipe, 2019. "Housing Sprint: land report," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 102339, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Murray, Cameron & Ryan-Collins, Josh, 2020. "When homes earn more than jobs: the rentierization of the Australian housing market," OSF Preprints 8f67h, Center for Open Science.
    7. Paul Cheshire, 2019. "The Costs of Containment: Or the Need to Plan for Urban Growth," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 20(03), pages 10-14, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. John Muellbauer, 2012. "When is a Housing Market Overheated Enough to Threaten Stability?," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Alexandra Heath & Frank Packer & Callan Windsor (ed.),Property Markets and Financial Stability, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    2. Tarne, Ruben & Bezemer, Dirk & Theobald, Thomas, 2022. "The effect of borrower-specific loan-to-value policies on household debt, wealth inequality and consumption volatility: An agent-based analysis," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    3. John Muellbauer & Pierre St-Amant & David Williams, 2015. "Credit Conditions and Consumption, House Prices and Debt: What Makes Canada Different?," Staff Working Papers 15-40, Bank of Canada.
    4. John Muellbauer, 2015. "Housing and the Macroeconomy: Inflation and the Financial Accelerator," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(S1), pages 51-58, March.
    5. Mr. Christopher Carroll & Mr. Martin Sommer & Mr. Jiri Slacalek, 2012. "Dissecting Saving Dynamics: Measuring Wealth, Precautionary, and Credit Effects," IMF Working Papers 2012/219, International Monetary Fund.
    6. Christophe Blot & Jérôme Creel & Paul Hubert, 2019. "Challenges ahead for EMU monetary policy," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03403244, HAL.
    7. Federica Ciocchetta & Elisa Guglielminetti & Alessandro Mistretta, 2023. "What drives house prices in Europe?," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 764, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    8. John Muellbauer, 2016. "Macroeconomics and Consumption," Economics Series Working Papers Paper-811, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    9. Bruno Albuquerque & Georgi Krustev, 2018. "Debt Overhang and Deleveraging in the US Household Sector: Gauging the Impact on Consumption," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(2), pages 459-481, June.
    10. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5udjblpuik8sp8d8qljh06m7ng is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Ruben Tarne & Dirk Bezemer & Thomas Theobald, 2021. "The Effect of borrower-specific Loan-to-Value policies on household debt, wealth inequality and consumption volatility," IMK Working Paper 212-2021, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    12. Garbinti, Bertrand & Lamarche, Pierre & Savignac, Frédérique & Lecanu, Charlélie, 2020. "Wealth effect on consumption during the sovereign debt crisis: households heterogeneity in the euro area," Working Paper Series 2357, European Central Bank.
    13. Muellbauer, John & Geiger, Felix & Rupprecht, Manuel, 2016. "The housing market, household portfolios and the German consumer," Working Paper Series 1904, European Central Bank.
    14. Márquez, Elena & Martínez-Cañete, Ana R. & Pérez-Soba, Inés, 2013. "Wealth shocks, credit conditions and asymmetric consumption response: Empirical evidence for the UK," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 357-366.
    15. Riccardo De Bonis & Danilo Liberati & John Muellbauer & Concetta Rondinelli, 2020. "Consumption and wealth: new evidence from Italy," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1304, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    16. Douglas Sutherland & Peter Hoeller & Balázs Égert & Oliver Röhn, 2010. "Counter-cyclical Economic Policy," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 760, OECD Publishing.
    17. Avner Offer, 2013. "Narrow Banking, Real Estate, and Financial Stability in the UK, c.1870-2010," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _116, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    18. Savignac, Frédérique & Arrondel, Luc & Lamarche, Pierre, 2015. "Wealth effects on consumption across the wealth distribution: empirical evidence," Working Paper Series 1817, European Central Bank.
    19. Marc Peter Radke & Manuel Rupprecht, 2021. "Household Wealth: Low-Yielding and Poorly Structured?," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-40, March.
    20. Crowe, Christopher & Dell’Ariccia, Giovanni & Igan, Deniz & Rabanal, Pau, 2013. "How to deal with real estate booms: Lessons from country experiences," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 300-319.
    21. Jiao Danxiao & Wu Di & Li Xiuting & Dong Jichang & Dash Wu Desheng, 2014. "A Dynamic Model of Housing Wealth Effect: Based on the Diversity of Wealth Expectations," Journal of Systems Science and Information, De Gruyter, vol. 2(1), pages 47-53, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Housing markets in the UK and Germany; housing affordability; property taxation; land-use and rental regulations; mortgage markets; house prices and volatility; residential mobility;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R31 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Housing Supply and Markets
    • R21 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Housing Demand
    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • R38 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Government Policy
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:niesru:v:245:y:2018:i:1:p:r20-r33. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/niesruk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.