Michael Ball
Biographic Data
| ID | 3673630 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael Ball |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael |
| FAMILY NAME | Ball |
| SIGNATURE | BALL M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Birkbeck, University of London |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7036-3902 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 52 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 442 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 52 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1945 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 14 |
Independent living transitions for young people with cerebral palsy in Australia: Aligning policy and practice with family realities
The transition to independent living is a key marker of adulthood for many adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with disability. How families adapt to this highly complex process is an important area for examination, to inform policy and practice that effectively support family life. This study aimed to understand family adaptation processes during the independent living transitions for families of AYAs with cerebral palsy. Semi-structured intervi…
Are Landlords so Different? Comments on Residential Accumulation: A Political Economy Framework
The relationship between residential development land prices and house prices
There exists apparent disagreement between two areas of literature regarding the relationship between house prices and land prices. In the professional literature it is argued that high house prices cause high residential development land prices. In some of the policy literature it is argued that it is land-price increases that are behind increasing house prices. We argue that this is a rather artificial dichotomy and arises from two different wa…
Housing Policy and Economic Power: The Political Economy of Owner Occupation
Housing the planet: Evolution of global housing policies
Housing provision in 21st century Europe
Urban Growth Boundaries and their Impact on Land Prices
Undeveloped land transactions at the urban fringe of the Melbourne metropolitan area in Australia are recorded in a dataset that enables exploration of the impact of its urban growth boundary (UGB) on residential land prices. Estimation can take account of a wide range of factors, while controlling for policy anticipation effects and other potential influences on land prices. Modelling estimates indicate that land prices rose substantially inside…
Does Infrastructure Investment Stimulate Building Supply? The Case of the English Regions
Ball M. and Nanda A. Does infrastructure investment stimulate building supply? The case of the English regions, Regional Studies. Policies to improve infrastructure to stimulate regional growth remain common. This paper investigates whether increases in infrastructure investment in the English regions lead to subsequent rises in new commercial and residential property, using time-series modelling. Both physical (roads and harbours) and social inf…
Ethnomethodology and the Visual: Practices of Looking, Visualization, and Embodied Action
Planning Delay and the Responsiveness of English Housing Supply
There is growing international interest in the impact of regulatory controls on the supply of housing. Most research focuses on the supply impacts of prescribed limits on land use but housing supply may also be affected by the process of planning monitoring and approval but this is hard to measure in detail. The UK has a particularly restrictive planning regime and a detailed and uncertain process of development control linked to it, but does off…
Critical Commentary. Cities and Housing Markets: Changes and Continuities in the Aftermath of the 2007—08 World Financial Crisis
Localisation versus globalisation: Some evidence from real estate services organisations
Urban Change and Conflict: Evaluating the Role of Partnerships in Urban Regeneration in the UK
Over the past twenty or so years, the focus of urban regeneration in the UK has changed from being based on outcomes that primarily involved property redevelopment – by either the public or private sectors – to a broader mix of issues and a far greater emphasis on the process of urban regeneration and the partnership ideal. The evaluation undertaken here takes a critical stance towards the ways in which the partnership principle has been adopted …
Synergy in Urban Regeneration Partnerships: Property Agents' Perspectives
A major justification for urban regeneration partnerships (URPs) is that they provide synergistic benefits for their participants. Some argue that the major beneficiaries will be private-sector agencies. This proposition is examined in the light of evidence from a survey of property-related agencies. The opinions of developers and property consultants on the success of the partnership process in regeneration schemes with a significant property re…
Markets and the Structure of the Housebuilding Industry: An International Perspective
This paper sets out to examine why the modern housebuilding industry is organised in the ways it is and to identify some implications for the wider operation of housing markets. It concentrates on advanced economies and the impacts of market conditions, regulatory constraints, production characteristics, institutional structures and land supply. Widespread differences occur across countries in the ways in which housebuilding is institutionally st…
Cultural Explanation of Regional Property Markets: A Critique
In a recent paper in this journal, Simon Guy and John Henneberry (2000) proposed an institutional approach to property markets that emphasises exceptional behaviour on the part of particular market agents. Using this cultural approach, they claimed to have evidence that London-based property investors deliberately underinvest in British property outside southern England. This paper criticises their dismissal of pre-existing economic and instituti…
Driving in neutral: Is it the way forward for housing policy
Housing Investment Fluctuations: An International Comparison
This article examines whether there is greater stability in modern housing markets compared with those in the 1920s and 1930s and pre-1914 by looking at the volatility of investment in housing across a number of countries over the long term. It also confirms the view that housing investment is particularly volatile compared with other sectors of the economy. Surprisingly, there is only limited evidence of greater stability in housing markets sinc…
Housing Investment: Long Run International Trends and Volatility
Using long-run data for today's advanced economies, the pattern of housing investment is examined from the 19th century to the present day. Housing investment is shown to be subject to long cycles, the most pronounced of which were in the post-1945 era. Since 1970 the trend of housing investment has been flat for most countries considered, and falling as shares of national income. Fluctuations in housing investment demand may have helped to stabi…
Introduction-Improving British Housing Supply
Chasing a Snail: Innovation and Housebuilding Firms' Strategies
British housebuilding has an exceptionally poor record at introducing innovations in design and production methods. Recent government concern about the poor innovation and productivity performance of the construction industry has focused almost entirely on changing the strategies of firms. In the context of housebuilding, this focus seems insufficient. Instead, it is argued here that housebuilders face particular market constraints on innovation …
Institutions in British Property Research: A Review
This paper surveys approaches to the study of institutions, as used in recent commercial property research in Britain. Institutional analysis can be approached from mainstream economics, power, structure-agency and structures of provision methodologies. Each is elaborated and evaluated. Important differences arise between them, which are related primarily to issues of theory and method rather than over whether institutions matter. Any particular …
London and Property Markets: A Long-term View
This paper examines the relationship between investment in built structures, economic growth and economic cycles in the UK from the middle of the 19th century and relates its findings to the development of London. A rising price of built structures relative to investment in equipment has existed throughout virtually all of the time-period. This, it is argued, has encouraged suburbanisation. In addition, a long-term rise in demand for housing is p…
Structures Investment and Economic Growth: A Long-term International Comparison
Interest has grown again in recent years about the long-term and cyclical nature of building investment and its effect on the macroeconomy. This paper investigates the nature of building trends and cycles from the 19th century to the present day for eight major OECD economies. Focusing predominantly on non-housing structures, the Kalman filter is used to decompose the series into trends and cycles. It was found that building cycles exist in all c…
The 1980s Property Boom
In this paper the causes and consequences of the property boom of the late 1980s are considered that in one way or another affected most developed economies and several industrialising ones. It is suggested that technical change in key service industries caused an upsurge in building demand from the mid-1970s onwards. Shifts in employment patterns then generated repercussions in housing markets. The classic conditions were created for a 'Kuznets …
The Built Environment and the Urban Question
Debates over the content of urban studies flowered in the early 1970s and died in the 1980s. The rise and fall was closely mirrored by the fashionable status of the urban theories of certain Marxists. This paper is a look at the reasons why this urban debate, like its predecessors, failed to incorporate an adequate analysis of the provision of the built environment, the physical framework of cities. The work of Castells, Lojkine, amd Harvey is ex…
Housing analysis: Time for a theoretical refocus
Housing analysis traditionally focuses on the consumption and allocation aspects of housing provision, concentrating particularly on state policies towards housing tenures. This paper presents a theoretical critique of the consumption‐orientated emphasis, and suggests an alternative framework based on structures of housing provision. It is argued that to look at consumption‐related issues in the context of state housing policies is important, but…
The Urban Rent Question
Urban land rent theory has both fascinated and repelled researchers. The fascination stems from the idea that rent holds the key to urban spatial structures and distributional conflicts. The repulsion is based on bemusement at the complexity and jargon of the rent literature and rejection of rent's assumed centrality. In this paper the author surveys the urban rent literature and presents an alternative interpretation of the role of urban rent. I…
Recent Empirical Work on the Determinants of Relative House Prices
The 1980s Property Boom
In this paper the causes and consequences of the property boom of the late 1980s are considered that in one way or another affected most developed economies and several industrialising ones. It is suggested that technical change in key service industries caused an upsurge in building demand from the mid-1970s onwards. Shifts in employment patterns then generated repercussions in housing markets. The classic conditions were created for a 'Kuznets …
Differential rent and the role of landed property
La rente différentielle, dans la théorie marxiste de la rente fonciére capitaliste, est souvent considérée comme l'appropriation, par les propriétaires, des surprofits résultant de la production sur les terres les plus fertiles, surprofits différentiels dont l'existence serait indépendante de la nécessité du paiement de rente. Dans cette perspective, la rente différentielle n'influe pas sur le procès d'accumulation du capital, ni sur la valeur d'…
Accessibility and Supply Constraints in the Urban Housing Market
This paper discusses some of the chief influences on the urban housing market and their significance for economic analysis. It then looks comparatively at the 'trade-off' approach and the sub-markets approach. Results from an empirical study of owner-occupier housing in Bristol are presented. Although spatial clusters of households and housing types clearly emerged, the empirical tests showed that such spatial structures did not produce separate …
Rhetorical barriers to understanding housing provision: What the ‘provision thesis’ is and is not
This paper reviews some recent critiques of the concept of ‘structures of housing provision’ (SHP) and attempts to clarify the nature and status of this concept. It argues that SHP is not a ‘theory of housing’, nor does it imply a production‐centred approach to housing analysis. Rather, SHP is a metatheoretical concept or analytical framework which, together with other theories, may be of use in the examination of particular aspects of housing de…
Chasing a Snail: Innovation and Housebuilding Firms' Strategies
British housebuilding has an exceptionally poor record at introducing innovations in design and production methods. Recent government concern about the poor innovation and productivity performance of the construction industry has focused almost entirely on changing the strategies of firms. In the context of housebuilding, this focus seems insufficient. Instead, it is argued here that housebuilders face particular market constraints on innovation …
On Marx's theory of agricultural rent: A reply to Ben Fine
(1980). On Marx's theory of agricultural rent: A reply to Ben Fine. Economy and Society: Vol. 9, No. 3, pp. 304-326
Planning Delay and the Responsiveness of English Housing Supply
There is growing international interest in the impact of regulatory controls on the supply of housing. Most research focuses on the supply impacts of prescribed limits on land use but housing supply may also be affected by the process of planning monitoring and approval but this is hard to measure in detail. The UK has a particularly restrictive planning regime and a detailed and uncertain process of development control linked to it, but does off…
Markets and the Structure of the Housebuilding Industry: An International Perspective
This paper sets out to examine why the modern housebuilding industry is organised in the ways it is and to identify some implications for the wider operation of housing markets. It concentrates on advanced economies and the impacts of market conditions, regulatory constraints, production characteristics, institutional structures and land supply. Widespread differences occur across countries in the ways in which housebuilding is institutionally st…
Housing provision and the economic crisis
The recent cuts in state housing expenditure are reviewed and placed in the context of the economic crises and growth of owner occupation. It is suggested that owner occupation does not even provide a capitalist solution to the housing crisis and a radical transformation of both council housing and owner occupation is argued for through programmes associated with nationalisation of land and the building industry
Urban Change and Conflict: Evaluating the Role of Partnerships in Urban Regeneration in the UK
Over the past twenty or so years, the focus of urban regeneration in the UK has changed from being based on outcomes that primarily involved property redevelopment – by either the public or private sectors – to a broader mix of issues and a far greater emphasis on the process of urban regeneration and the partnership ideal. The evaluation undertaken here takes a critical stance towards the ways in which the partnership principle has been adopted …
The development of capitalism in housing provision
Urban Growth Boundaries and their Impact on Land Prices
Undeveloped land transactions at the urban fringe of the Melbourne metropolitan area in Australia are recorded in a dataset that enables exploration of the impact of its urban growth boundary (UGB) on residential land prices. Estimation can take account of a wide range of factors, while controlling for policy anticipation effects and other potential influences on land prices. Modelling estimates indicate that land prices rose substantially inside…
British Housing Policy and the House-Building Industry
Housing provision in 21st century Europe
Synergy in Urban Regeneration Partnerships: Property Agents' Perspectives
A major justification for urban regeneration partnerships (URPs) is that they provide synergistic benefits for their participants. Some argue that the major beneficiaries will be private-sector agencies. This proposition is examined in the light of evidence from a survey of property-related agencies. The opinions of developers and property consultants on the success of the partnership process in regeneration schemes with a significant property re…
Cultural Explanation of Regional Property Markets: A Critique
In a recent paper in this journal, Simon Guy and John Henneberry (2000) proposed an institutional approach to property markets that emphasises exceptional behaviour on the part of particular market agents. Using this cultural approach, they claimed to have evidence that London-based property investors deliberately underinvest in British property outside southern England. This paper criticises their dismissal of pre-existing economic and instituti…
Capital accumulation in the Mexican construction industry, 1930-82
Coming to terms with owner occupation
The debate over housing has tended to be confined to tenure choices and hence to consumption issues. The left has failed to confront the problems of owner occupation partly because it has accepted this limited terrain of debate and partly because it has adopted an economistic view of the link between tenure and voting behaviour. The author argues that an adequate strategy can only begin to be developed if we challenge structures of housing provis…
Housing Investment Fluctuations: An International Comparison
This article examines whether there is greater stability in modern housing markets compared with those in the 1920s and 1930s and pre-1914 by looking at the volatility of investment in housing across a number of countries over the long term. It also confirms the view that housing investment is particularly volatile compared with other sectors of the economy. Surprisingly, there is only limited evidence of greater stability in housing markets sinc…
Introduction-Improving British Housing Supply
Housing the planet: Evolution of global housing policies
The Problem of Inter-American Organization
International Politics
Recent Empirical Work on the Determinants of Relative House Prices
The Determinants of Relative House Prices: A reply
the sample data used in the regression analysis reported in his paper (1971) on which I commented in a review article (1973) on house price studies. As data for different years was apparently not used, obviously my statement about possible biases was invalid. He also raised a point about Table 11, which summarised the principal results of the studies surveyed. Wilkinson felt that the sample size given for his analysis should have read 2,708, the …
Accessibility and Supply Constraints in the Urban Housing Market
This paper discusses some of the chief influences on the urban housing market and their significance for economic analysis. It then looks comparatively at the 'trade-off' approach and the sub-markets approach. Results from an empirical study of owner-occupier housing in Bristol are presented. Although spatial clusters of households and housing types clearly emerged, the empirical tests showed that such spatial structures did not produce separate …
Differential rent and the role of landed property
La rente différentielle, dans la théorie marxiste de la rente fonciére capitaliste, est souvent considérée comme l'appropriation, par les propriétaires, des surprofits résultant de la production sur les terres les plus fertiles, surprofits différentiels dont l'existence serait indépendante de la nécessité du paiement de rente. Dans cette perspective, la rente différentielle n'influe pas sur le procès d'accumulation du capital, ni sur la valeur d'…
British Housing Policy and the House-Building Industry
A critique of urban economics
On Marx's theory of agricultural rent: A reply to Ben Fine
(1980). On Marx's theory of agricultural rent: A reply to Ben Fine. Economy and Society: Vol. 9, No. 3, pp. 304-326
The development of capitalism in housing provision
Housing provision and the economic crisis
The recent cuts in state housing expenditure are reviewed and placed in the context of the economic crises and growth of owner occupation. It is suggested that owner occupation does not even provide a capitalist solution to the housing crisis and a radical transformation of both council housing and owner occupation is argued for through programmes associated with nationalisation of land and the building industry
Forms of Housing Production-The Birth of a New Concept or the Creation of a Cul-De-Sac
In a recent article in Environment and Planning A, Cardoso and Short discussed a concept called 'forms of housing production'. In this paper, 1 comment on the arguments they associated with the concept. I suggest that, despite their attempts to situate themselves within the Marxist tradition, Cardoso and Short have neglected and misinterpreted much of the Marxist work on housing of the past decade. Furthermore, their particular interpretation of …
Mansion on the Hill
OWNING A HOME IS THE North American worker's dream. Generations of immigrants have aspired to property ownership in the New World. The home has become a powerful symbol of American life: of the rewards of thrift, of the possibilities for social mobility and individual achievement, and of the abiding virtues of family life. Such, at any rate, is the prevailing view, articulated by social observers and real estate promoters alike. Homeownership is …
The Urban Rent Question
Urban land rent theory has both fascinated and repelled researchers. The fascination stems from the idea that rent holds the key to urban spatial structures and distributional conflicts. The repulsion is based on bemusement at the complexity and jargon of the rent literature and rejection of rent's assumed centrality. In this paper the author surveys the urban rent literature and presents an alternative interpretation of the role of urban rent. I…
Coming to terms with owner occupation
The debate over housing has tended to be confined to tenure choices and hence to consumption issues. The left has failed to confront the problems of owner occupation partly because it has accepted this limited terrain of debate and partly because it has adopted an economistic view of the link between tenure and voting behaviour. The author argues that an adequate strategy can only begin to be developed if we challenge structures of housing provis…
Housing analysis: Time for a theoretical refocus
Housing analysis traditionally focuses on the consumption and allocation aspects of housing provision, concentrating particularly on state policies towards housing tenures. This paper presents a theoretical critique of the consumption‐orientated emphasis, and suggests an alternative framework based on structures of housing provision. It is argued that to look at consumption‐related issues in the context of state housing policies is important, but…
Making Sense of Marx
Journal Article Making Sense of Marx Get access Making Sense of Marx. By JON ELSTER. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Pp. xv+ 556. £32.50 hardback, £10.95 paperback.) Michael Ball Michael Ball Birkbeck College, University of London Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Economic Journal, Volume 96, Issue 382, 1 June 1986, Pages 576–578, https://doi.org/10.2307/2233155 Published: 01 June 1986
The Built Environment and the Urban Question
Debates over the content of urban studies flowered in the early 1970s and died in the 1980s. The rise and fall was closely mirrored by the fashionable status of the urban theories of certain Marxists. This paper is a look at the reasons why this urban debate, like its predecessors, failed to incorporate an adequate analysis of the provision of the built environment, the physical framework of cities. The work of Castells, Lojkine, amd Harvey is ex…
Rent and Social Relations: A Reply to Clark
This reply highlights the difference between those who think Marx's agricultural rent categories constitute an indissoluble element of all potential Marxist discussions of rent, and those who would argue that Marx's placing of rent relations in their social and historical context is the foundation of the Marxist approach to rent. Clark's comments, apart from some misinterpretations of the original article, clearly come from the ‘category fundamen…
Capital accumulation in the Mexican construction industry, 1930-82
Hemlock water dropwort poisoning
George E. Howard's Institutional Sociology of Marriage and Divorce
In 1904, with the publication of A History of Matrimonial Institutions, George Elliott H?ward became an internationally recognized expert on ~amage and family. Howard's work marked the start of serious sociological studr of mamage and family at the University of Nebraska, a tradition that contmues to the present day. This paper introduces Howard's theoretical perspective on marriage as a social institution, locates his work within a new wave of e…
Housing and Social Change in Europe and the USA
Analyzing Visual Data
Introduction The Use of Photographs in a Discipline of Words Analyzing the Content of Visual Representations Symbolist and Structuralist Analyses of Visual Representations The Social Organization of Visual Experience
Land at the margin? A comment on Evans, ‘On differential rent and landed property’
Economics (35 works) · Housing Market and Economics (26 works) · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism (25 works) · Political science (22 works) · Business (16 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Law (13 works) · Engineering (11 works) · Geography (11 works) · Computer Science (10 works)