Geoffrey Meen
Biographic Data
| ID | 5935504 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Geoffrey Meen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Geoffrey |
| FAMILY NAME | Meen |
| SIGNATURE | MEEN G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Reading |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8502-9694 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 206 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1989 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
On the long-run solution to aggregate housing systems
This paper explores the properties of dynamic aggregate housing models. In conventional models, in response to demand shocks the primary adjustment mechanism is through prices and changes in housing supply. However, the size of the supply response depends on the price elasticity of supply and in countries such as the UK where the elasticity is low, house prices can rise sharply, worsening affordability. But this ignores the roles of housing risk …
Long-run urban dynamics: Understanding local housing market change in London
Recently, a literature has emerged using empirical techniques to study the evolution of international cities over many centuries; however, few studies examine long-run change within cities. Conventional models and concepts are not always appropriate and data issues make long-run neighbourhood analysis particularly problematic. This paper addresses some of these points. First, it discusses why the analysis of long-run urban change is important for…
Spatial housing economics: A survey
This introduction to the virtual special issue surveys the development of spatial housing economics from its roots in neoclassical theory, through more recent developments in social interactions modelling, and touching on the role of institutions, path dependence and economic history. The survey also points to some of the more promising future directions for the subject that are beginning to appear in the literature. The survey covers elements of…
Do We Really Need to Throw Away Conventional Tools of Economic Analysis? A Comment on “Neo-liberalism and the City: Or the Failure of Market Fundamentalism”
The Distribution of London Residential Property Prices and the Role of Spatial Lock-in
Much of mainstream economic analysis assumes that markets adjust smoothly, through prices, to changes in economic conditions. However, this is not necessarily the case for local housing markets, whose spatial structures may exhibit persistence, so that conditions may not be those most suited to the requirements of modern-day living. Persistence can arise from the existence of transaction costs. The paper tests the proposition that housing markets…
Homeownership for Future Generations in the UK
This paper constructs a housing market model to analyse conditions for different generations of households in the UK. Previous policy work has suggested that baby-boomers have benefitted at the expense of younger generations. The model relies on a form of financial accelerator in which existing homeowners reinvest a proportion of the capital gains on moving home. The model is extended to look at homeownership probabilities. It also explains why a…
The Adjustment of Housing Markets to Migration Change: Lessons from Modern History
This study is concerned with two issues: first, the factors that determine the local location decisions of migrants within the UK and, second, the impact of migrant communities on domestic housing markets. Most migration studies are concerned with the determinants of international migration to the UK . Few look at the drivers of the spatial distributions once migrants arrive. However, migrant housing is primarily a local, urban problem and, argua…
The economic consequences of mortgage debt
A Long-Run Model of Housing Affordability
As a result of the recommendations of the Barker Review of Housing Supply in 2004, the Department of Communities and Local Government in England commissioned the construction of an econometric model of regional housing markets in order to examine the effects of different levels of housing construction on long-run affordability. The model has been regularly used as part of the policy-making process in England. The paper describes the structure of …
Local Housing Supply and the Impact of History and Geography
This paper considers the impact of existing land use patterns on housing supply price elasticities in local areas of England, under existing planning policies. The paper demonstrates that, despite common national planning policies, local supply responses to market pressures vary considerably, because of differences in historical land uses. The study area covers the Thames Gateway and Thames Valley, which lie to the east and west of London respect…
Modelling Local Spatial Poverty Traps in England
This paper considers how local areas become stuck in poverty traps and develops models exhibiting thresholds, where deprivation has to fall to a certain level before taking off. Using aggregate data for local authorities, the paper models cross-section movements of house prices to identify the threshold level of poverty. The paper argues that the resource requirements for bringing the most deprived areas to the take-off point are likely to be hig…
Ten New Propositions in UK Housing Macroeconomics: An Overview of the First Years of the Century
In the mid 1990s, Meen set out a series of propositions concerning the relationship between housing and the macro economy during the 1980s and early 1990s. This paper provides 10 further propositions for the early years of this century, taking into account recent research and policy concerns. The first five propositions concern housing market risk, whereas the remaining issues deal with the sustainability of homeownership. The empirical evidence …
Population structure and location choice: A study of London and South East England
On the Economics of the Barker Review of Housing Supply
The Barker Review of Housing Supply was set up in order to address some of the weaknesses that might arise if the UK were to join EMU. The Final Report has quickly become one of the most important documents in housing policy for many years. Broadly, the Review examined the reasons for the weakness of English housing supply. For example, during the 1990s, despite the boom in house prices, private housing construction hardly grew at all. The weakne…
Social Behaviour as a Basis for Modelling the Urban Housing Market: A Review
This paper considers how empirical models of urban housing markets might be constructed as a basis for policy analysis. It is suggested that this is fundamentally more difficult than national or regional models, because of particular characteristics of urban markets-notably, the importance of social interactions, non-linearity and segregation. However, recent advances in the modelling of social interactions point to a possible way forward. The pa…
Housing cycles and efficiency
This paper has four objectives. First, a small model of the UK housing market is constructed, including equations for house prices, housing starts, construction costs and interest rates. The model is used in an analysis of housing market cycles, employing techniques developed for the analysis of general business cycles. Second, the model is used to consider housing market efficiency. Third, the model is extended to examine the relationship betwee…
Regional House Prices and the Ripple Effect: A New Interpretation
In Britain, house prices exhibit a distinct spatial pattern over time, rising first in a cyclical upswing in the south-east and, then, spreading out over the rest of the country. This is known as the ripple effect. Although previous studies have shown that, statistically, the ripple effect is a valid representation of the data, providing convincing economic explanations is less straightforward. Some studies have concentrated on the role of migrat…
Modelling Sustainable Home-ownership: Demographics or Economics
According to recent official projections, 4.4 million new households will be formed in England between 1991 and 2016. These estimates are based on a detailed analysis of demographic trends, but take no account of the effect of potential changes in economic conditions, particularly on the owner-occupancy rate. In this paper, we propose a new approach to modelling sustainable owner-occupancy which places less emphasis on demographics, but considers…
On the Aggregate Housing Market Implications of Labour Market Change
Labor markets in the United Kingdom have undergone important structural changes in recent years. Given the close relationship between labor and housing markets, these changes are likely to have had knock-on effects to housing. This paper examines the quantitative evidence in this area in terms of aggregate housing demand and house prices, set in a life-cycle framework. The paper finds evidence of structural change in the 1990s in the traditional …
Determinants of Journeys to Work in Central London, 1954–93
Determinants of journeys to work in central London, 1954–93
Spatial aggregation, spatial dependence and predictability in the UK housing market
Most time‐series studies of UK housing markets are carried out on national data. However, housing markets may be better characterised as a series of interconnected sub‐national markets. In this paper, we use methods taken from the spatial econometrics literature and from cointegration to explore the nature of spatial interactions in UK regional house prices and housing starts. The three central spatial issues are the extent to which markets are (…
Ten Propositions in UK Housing Macroeconomics: An Overview of the 1980s and Early 1990s
During the last ten years, macroeconomists have increasingly come to realise that there are important interactions between housing and the wider economy. In some cases, this realisation has come too late to avoid the severe oscillations in the economy that have characterised the period since the mid-1980s. This paper uses a macroeconometric model, specifically designed to capture the interactions, in order to reflect on the experience of the 1980…
Is housing good for the economy
Not surprisingly housing researchers and practitioners frequently call for more resources to be devoted to housing. But governments in recent years have devoted fewer resources to housing rather than more. One of the reasons is that housing expenditures have to be seen in terms of the overall resource constraints on the economy and in many instances this requires a macro‐economic perspective. This paper reviews the macro‐economic arguments for an…
The Ending of Mortgage Rationing and its Effects on the Housing Market: A Simulation Study
The UK mortgage market has undergone important structural changes in recent years. A consequence has been that households are no longer generally subject to mortgage rationing. In this paper we examine some of the results of this change for the housing market. We first construct a simple theoretical model of the housing and mortgage markets and show, as an illustration of the effect of exogenous changes in general, how mortgage tax relief aboliti…
Regional House Prices and the Ripple Effect: A New Interpretation
In Britain, house prices exhibit a distinct spatial pattern over time, rising first in a cyclical upswing in the south-east and, then, spreading out over the rest of the country. This is known as the ripple effect. Although previous studies have shown that, statistically, the ripple effect is a valid representation of the data, providing convincing economic explanations is less straightforward. Some studies have concentrated on the role of migrat…
Spatial aggregation, spatial dependence and predictability in the UK housing market
Most time‐series studies of UK housing markets are carried out on national data. However, housing markets may be better characterised as a series of interconnected sub‐national markets. In this paper, we use methods taken from the spatial econometrics literature and from cointegration to explore the nature of spatial interactions in UK regional house prices and housing starts. The three central spatial issues are the extent to which markets are (…
On the Aggregate Housing Market Implications of Labour Market Change
Labor markets in the United Kingdom have undergone important structural changes in recent years. Given the close relationship between labor and housing markets, these changes are likely to have had knock-on effects to housing. This paper examines the quantitative evidence in this area in terms of aggregate housing demand and house prices, set in a life-cycle framework. The paper finds evidence of structural change in the 1990s in the traditional …
Ten Propositions in UK Housing Macroeconomics: An Overview of the 1980s and Early 1990s
During the last ten years, macroeconomists have increasingly come to realise that there are important interactions between housing and the wider economy. In some cases, this realisation has come too late to avoid the severe oscillations in the economy that have characterised the period since the mid-1980s. This paper uses a macroeconometric model, specifically designed to capture the interactions, in order to reflect on the experience of the 1980…
Modelling Local Spatial Poverty Traps in England
This paper considers how local areas become stuck in poverty traps and develops models exhibiting thresholds, where deprivation has to fall to a certain level before taking off. Using aggregate data for local authorities, the paper models cross-section movements of house prices to identify the threshold level of poverty. The paper argues that the resource requirements for bringing the most deprived areas to the take-off point are likely to be hig…
A Long-Run Model of Housing Affordability
As a result of the recommendations of the Barker Review of Housing Supply in 2004, the Department of Communities and Local Government in England commissioned the construction of an econometric model of regional housing markets in order to examine the effects of different levels of housing construction on long-run affordability. The model has been regularly used as part of the policy-making process in England. The paper describes the structure of …
The Distribution of London Residential Property Prices and the Role of Spatial Lock-in
Much of mainstream economic analysis assumes that markets adjust smoothly, through prices, to changes in economic conditions. However, this is not necessarily the case for local housing markets, whose spatial structures may exhibit persistence, so that conditions may not be those most suited to the requirements of modern-day living. Persistence can arise from the existence of transaction costs. The paper tests the proposition that housing markets…
On the Economics of the Barker Review of Housing Supply
The Barker Review of Housing Supply was set up in order to address some of the weaknesses that might arise if the UK were to join EMU. The Final Report has quickly become one of the most important documents in housing policy for many years. Broadly, the Review examined the reasons for the weakness of English housing supply. For example, during the 1990s, despite the boom in house prices, private housing construction hardly grew at all. The weakne…
Modelling Sustainable Home-ownership: Demographics or Economics
According to recent official projections, 4.4 million new households will be formed in England between 1991 and 2016. These estimates are based on a detailed analysis of demographic trends, but take no account of the effect of potential changes in economic conditions, particularly on the owner-occupancy rate. In this paper, we propose a new approach to modelling sustainable owner-occupancy which places less emphasis on demographics, but considers…
Local Housing Supply and the Impact of History and Geography
This paper considers the impact of existing land use patterns on housing supply price elasticities in local areas of England, under existing planning policies. The paper demonstrates that, despite common national planning policies, local supply responses to market pressures vary considerably, because of differences in historical land uses. The study area covers the Thames Gateway and Thames Valley, which lie to the east and west of London respect…
Ten New Propositions in UK Housing Macroeconomics: An Overview of the First Years of the Century
In the mid 1990s, Meen set out a series of propositions concerning the relationship between housing and the macro economy during the 1980s and early 1990s. This paper provides 10 further propositions for the early years of this century, taking into account recent research and policy concerns. The first five propositions concern housing market risk, whereas the remaining issues deal with the sustainability of homeownership. The empirical evidence …
Long-run urban dynamics: Understanding local housing market change in London
Recently, a literature has emerged using empirical techniques to study the evolution of international cities over many centuries; however, few studies examine long-run change within cities. Conventional models and concepts are not always appropriate and data issues make long-run neighbourhood analysis particularly problematic. This paper addresses some of these points. First, it discusses why the analysis of long-run urban change is important for…
Homeownership for Future Generations in the UK
This paper constructs a housing market model to analyse conditions for different generations of households in the UK. Previous policy work has suggested that baby-boomers have benefitted at the expense of younger generations. The model relies on a form of financial accelerator in which existing homeowners reinvest a proportion of the capital gains on moving home. The model is extended to look at homeownership probabilities. It also explains why a…
The economic consequences of mortgage debt
Population structure and location choice: A study of London and South East England
Spatial housing economics: A survey
This introduction to the virtual special issue surveys the development of spatial housing economics from its roots in neoclassical theory, through more recent developments in social interactions modelling, and touching on the role of institutions, path dependence and economic history. The survey also points to some of the more promising future directions for the subject that are beginning to appear in the literature. The survey covers elements of…
Housing cycles and efficiency
This paper has four objectives. First, a small model of the UK housing market is constructed, including equations for house prices, housing starts, construction costs and interest rates. The model is used in an analysis of housing market cycles, employing techniques developed for the analysis of general business cycles. Second, the model is used to consider housing market efficiency. Third, the model is extended to examine the relationship betwee…
Is housing good for the economy
Not surprisingly housing researchers and practitioners frequently call for more resources to be devoted to housing. But governments in recent years have devoted fewer resources to housing rather than more. One of the reasons is that housing expenditures have to be seen in terms of the overall resource constraints on the economy and in many instances this requires a macro‐economic perspective. This paper reviews the macro‐economic arguments for an…
The Ending of Mortgage Rationing and its Effects on the Housing Market: A Simulation Study
The UK mortgage market has undergone important structural changes in recent years. A consequence has been that households are no longer generally subject to mortgage rationing. In this paper we examine some of the results of this change for the housing market. We first construct a simple theoretical model of the housing and mortgage markets and show, as an illustration of the effect of exogenous changes in general, how mortgage tax relief aboliti…
On the long-run solution to aggregate housing systems
This paper explores the properties of dynamic aggregate housing models. In conventional models, in response to demand shocks the primary adjustment mechanism is through prices and changes in housing supply. However, the size of the supply response depends on the price elasticity of supply and in countries such as the UK where the elasticity is low, house prices can rise sharply, worsening affordability. But this ignores the roles of housing risk …
The Ending of Mortgage Rationing and its Effects on the Housing Market: A Simulation Study
The UK mortgage market has undergone important structural changes in recent years. A consequence has been that households are no longer generally subject to mortgage rationing. In this paper we examine some of the results of this change for the housing market. We first construct a simple theoretical model of the housing and mortgage markets and show, as an illustration of the effect of exogenous changes in general, how mortgage tax relief aboliti…
Is housing good for the economy
Not surprisingly housing researchers and practitioners frequently call for more resources to be devoted to housing. But governments in recent years have devoted fewer resources to housing rather than more. One of the reasons is that housing expenditures have to be seen in terms of the overall resource constraints on the economy and in many instances this requires a macro‐economic perspective. This paper reviews the macro‐economic arguments for an…
Determinants of Journeys to Work in Central London, 1954–93
Determinants of journeys to work in central London, 1954–93
Spatial aggregation, spatial dependence and predictability in the UK housing market
Most time‐series studies of UK housing markets are carried out on national data. However, housing markets may be better characterised as a series of interconnected sub‐national markets. In this paper, we use methods taken from the spatial econometrics literature and from cointegration to explore the nature of spatial interactions in UK regional house prices and housing starts. The three central spatial issues are the extent to which markets are (…
Ten Propositions in UK Housing Macroeconomics: An Overview of the 1980s and Early 1990s
During the last ten years, macroeconomists have increasingly come to realise that there are important interactions between housing and the wider economy. In some cases, this realisation has come too late to avoid the severe oscillations in the economy that have characterised the period since the mid-1980s. This paper uses a macroeconometric model, specifically designed to capture the interactions, in order to reflect on the experience of the 1980…
Modelling Sustainable Home-ownership: Demographics or Economics
According to recent official projections, 4.4 million new households will be formed in England between 1991 and 2016. These estimates are based on a detailed analysis of demographic trends, but take no account of the effect of potential changes in economic conditions, particularly on the owner-occupancy rate. In this paper, we propose a new approach to modelling sustainable owner-occupancy which places less emphasis on demographics, but considers…
On the Aggregate Housing Market Implications of Labour Market Change
Labor markets in the United Kingdom have undergone important structural changes in recent years. Given the close relationship between labor and housing markets, these changes are likely to have had knock-on effects to housing. This paper examines the quantitative evidence in this area in terms of aggregate housing demand and house prices, set in a life-cycle framework. The paper finds evidence of structural change in the 1990s in the traditional …
Regional House Prices and the Ripple Effect: A New Interpretation
In Britain, house prices exhibit a distinct spatial pattern over time, rising first in a cyclical upswing in the south-east and, then, spreading out over the rest of the country. This is known as the ripple effect. Although previous studies have shown that, statistically, the ripple effect is a valid representation of the data, providing convincing economic explanations is less straightforward. Some studies have concentrated on the role of migrat…
Housing cycles and efficiency
This paper has four objectives. First, a small model of the UK housing market is constructed, including equations for house prices, housing starts, construction costs and interest rates. The model is used in an analysis of housing market cycles, employing techniques developed for the analysis of general business cycles. Second, the model is used to consider housing market efficiency. Third, the model is extended to examine the relationship betwee…
Social Behaviour as a Basis for Modelling the Urban Housing Market: A Review
This paper considers how empirical models of urban housing markets might be constructed as a basis for policy analysis. It is suggested that this is fundamentally more difficult than national or regional models, because of particular characteristics of urban markets-notably, the importance of social interactions, non-linearity and segregation. However, recent advances in the modelling of social interactions point to a possible way forward. The pa…
On the Economics of the Barker Review of Housing Supply
The Barker Review of Housing Supply was set up in order to address some of the weaknesses that might arise if the UK were to join EMU. The Final Report has quickly become one of the most important documents in housing policy for many years. Broadly, the Review examined the reasons for the weakness of English housing supply. For example, during the 1990s, despite the boom in house prices, private housing construction hardly grew at all. The weakne…
Population structure and location choice: A study of London and South East England
Ten New Propositions in UK Housing Macroeconomics: An Overview of the First Years of the Century
In the mid 1990s, Meen set out a series of propositions concerning the relationship between housing and the macro economy during the 1980s and early 1990s. This paper provides 10 further propositions for the early years of this century, taking into account recent research and policy concerns. The first five propositions concern housing market risk, whereas the remaining issues deal with the sustainability of homeownership. The empirical evidence …
Modelling Local Spatial Poverty Traps in England
This paper considers how local areas become stuck in poverty traps and develops models exhibiting thresholds, where deprivation has to fall to a certain level before taking off. Using aggregate data for local authorities, the paper models cross-section movements of house prices to identify the threshold level of poverty. The paper argues that the resource requirements for bringing the most deprived areas to the take-off point are likely to be hig…
The economic consequences of mortgage debt
A Long-Run Model of Housing Affordability
As a result of the recommendations of the Barker Review of Housing Supply in 2004, the Department of Communities and Local Government in England commissioned the construction of an econometric model of regional housing markets in order to examine the effects of different levels of housing construction on long-run affordability. The model has been regularly used as part of the policy-making process in England. The paper describes the structure of …
Local Housing Supply and the Impact of History and Geography
This paper considers the impact of existing land use patterns on housing supply price elasticities in local areas of England, under existing planning policies. The paper demonstrates that, despite common national planning policies, local supply responses to market pressures vary considerably, because of differences in historical land uses. The study area covers the Thames Gateway and Thames Valley, which lie to the east and west of London respect…
The Adjustment of Housing Markets to Migration Change: Lessons from Modern History
This study is concerned with two issues: first, the factors that determine the local location decisions of migrants within the UK and, second, the impact of migrant communities on domestic housing markets. Most migration studies are concerned with the determinants of international migration to the UK . Few look at the drivers of the spatial distributions once migrants arrive. However, migrant housing is primarily a local, urban problem and, argua…
Do We Really Need to Throw Away Conventional Tools of Economic Analysis? A Comment on “Neo-liberalism and the City: Or the Failure of Market Fundamentalism”
The Distribution of London Residential Property Prices and the Role of Spatial Lock-in
Much of mainstream economic analysis assumes that markets adjust smoothly, through prices, to changes in economic conditions. However, this is not necessarily the case for local housing markets, whose spatial structures may exhibit persistence, so that conditions may not be those most suited to the requirements of modern-day living. Persistence can arise from the existence of transaction costs. The paper tests the proposition that housing markets…
Homeownership for Future Generations in the UK
This paper constructs a housing market model to analyse conditions for different generations of households in the UK. Previous policy work has suggested that baby-boomers have benefitted at the expense of younger generations. The model relies on a form of financial accelerator in which existing homeowners reinvest a proportion of the capital gains on moving home. The model is extended to look at homeownership probabilities. It also explains why a…
Spatial housing economics: A survey
This introduction to the virtual special issue surveys the development of spatial housing economics from its roots in neoclassical theory, through more recent developments in social interactions modelling, and touching on the role of institutions, path dependence and economic history. The survey also points to some of the more promising future directions for the subject that are beginning to appear in the literature. The survey covers elements of…
Long-run urban dynamics: Understanding local housing market change in London
Recently, a literature has emerged using empirical techniques to study the evolution of international cities over many centuries; however, few studies examine long-run change within cities. Conventional models and concepts are not always appropriate and data issues make long-run neighbourhood analysis particularly problematic. This paper addresses some of these points. First, it discusses why the analysis of long-run urban change is important for…
On the long-run solution to aggregate housing systems
This paper explores the properties of dynamic aggregate housing models. In conventional models, in response to demand shocks the primary adjustment mechanism is through prices and changes in housing supply. However, the size of the supply response depends on the price elasticity of supply and in countries such as the UK where the elasticity is low, house prices can rise sharply, worsening affordability. But this ignores the roles of housing risk …
Economics (24 works) · Housing Market and Economics (23 works) · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism (16 works) · Economic geography (10 works) · Geography (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Econometrics (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Financial Literacy, Pension, Retirement Analysis (7 works) · House price (7 works)