INDUSTRY SECTOR

HOUSING AND URBAN PLANNING

Housing and Urban Renewal is strongly related to many different policy fields. Housing policy influences social policy (provision of affordable housing, regeneration of deprived areas), the capital markets (taxation of property, regulation of mortgages), environmental policy (preservation of landscape), cultural policy (preservation of architecture) and of course generally the wealth (house value) and the purchasing power (housing costs) of all households. Due to these strong connections to different high level policy issues governments interfere regularly in the housing market using regulations and subsidy schemes. Economics can assist policy makers and stakeholders through careful analysis of incentives and by examining the evidence, identifying whether the effects of the regulatory environment are really those expected and whether what happens in practice corresponds to what is intended.

Europe Economics assists with cost-benefit and market-impact analyses for financial regulation and urban planning proposals; in providing analysis and advocacy assistance for public-policy issues; and by suggesting new policy proposals. We can help design reforms and regulatory strategies; advise on technical issues connected with specific regulatory decisions; and predict the effects on prices and related issues of changes in regulation or taxes or other market developments.

Staff at Europe Economics have a good knowledge of the housing, urban renewal, financial and economic literature and are capable of performing advanced reviews and rigorous analytical studies that can communicate with technical policy-makers. We are also capable of expressing matters simply, in language that to which journalists and opinion-formers can relate.

Europe Economics has advised the UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) in a series of projects concerning the regulation of mortgage providers and mortgage intermediaries. Staff at Europe Economics have also evaluated housing and urban renewal policies for German authorities. The firm has also been involved in studies for the Campaign to Protect Rural England concerning issues such as whether the UK builds "enough" houses and whether the tax system provides appropriate incentives for efficient and environmentally appropriate house-building. Our paper “A Basis on Which to Build?” was covered in all the major UK newspapers, on television and in The Economist, as well as featuring in two parliamentary debates.