Housing Policy: Towards a Public Choice Perspective

Few commentators on the state of the housing market in the UK express satisfaction at the outcome of public policy in this field. From widely differing ideological presuppositions and with divergent views as to causes and cures, researchers nevertheless tend to agree that past policies have failed. This dissatisfaction arguably stems from the departure of housing policy from commonly held views about appropriate objectives. Housing policy is usually viewed as a response to some variety of ‘market failure’ or as a means of income redistribution. In the nineteenth century, externalities of a public health nature were important in encouraging the state to concern itself in the housing market, while the twentieth century has seen growing state involvement ostensibly as a response to so-called ‘distributional externalities’ or possibly on the grounds that housing service represents a ‘merit good’.