House prices are generally quite pro-cyclical: they tend to go up when the economy is doing well, and they tend … Continue reading “Housebuilding numbers in Britain remain pitifully low”

Wednesday’s news that 16,000 first-time buyers have saved thousands of pounds thanks to their exemption from stamp duty is, on … Continue reading “Put aside the gimmicks and get the government out of our lives”

These past two weeks have been a grim time for economists. From Transport for London’s decision to revoke Uber’s licence, … Continue reading “Are politicians economically illiterate? Or do they deliberately ignore basic economics?”

This video explain the six crucial economic issues that the government, however it is made up, will have to face … Continue reading “Six Questions the next Government must answer”

Economists are a notoriously quarrelsome bunch, who disagree on almost everything. Ask three economists, and you’ll get four opinions. The … Continue reading “Unaffordable housing: Causes, consequences and solutions”

In August, BBC News launched an online calculator which enabled people to work out whether their house was earning more … Continue reading “Liberating the housing market through fiscal decentralisation”

In a more rational world, planning reform would not be a tribal issue. It would, on the contrary, be an … Continue reading “A simple answer to the housing shortage: Relax the planning strait-jacket”

In this new video for ieaTV, IEA Director General Mark Littlewood explains how liberalising the UK’s suffocating planning laws would … Continue reading “Through the roof”

With low productivity, high inflation and terrible industrial relations, in 1977, Britain was a basket case. So that year, businessman … Continue reading “Planning liberalisation is the closest thing there is to an economic silver bullet”