Research reports

In three previous publications the report’s authors have shown that most of the problems with the housing market – low supply, high prices, overcrowding – can be attributed to the planning system.

Evans and Hartwich conclude in The Best Laid Plans that the main objective of planning has been to limit the spatial extent of cities and that this artificial reduction of land supply has severe consequences for society, the environment and the economy.

science vs superstition – the case for a new scientific enlightenment challenges the common belief that scientific progress in today’s world inevitably entails an element of danger or moral uncertainty. While many people seem to lack the vision of a genuinely better future, the authors of this collection of essays believe that it is time to make the case for a more positive attitude towards the future – a future that is made better through science.

The report makes a number of proposals, including allowing local authorities to retain more tax receipts arising from new developments to encourage them to attract new inhabitants to their areas; introducing a Social Cost Tariff worth £500,000 per hectare to compensate communities for the costs of development; and devolving all aspects of the planning system apart from minimum building targets to local authorities.

Following the success of Unaffordable Housing – Fables and Myths, which exposed the failings of Britain’s centrally planned system of development, Alan W. Evans and Oliver Marc Hartwich went on a journey in search of alternatives.
Interviewing planners, politicians, real estate agents and academics in four countries – Germany, Switzerland, Ireland and Australia – they uncovered how other countries succeed, and sometimes fail, to give people the housing they want.

Britain’s Soviet-style planning system means that we live in some of the smallest, oldest and costliest homes in the developed world. But is this the housing we want?

Unaffordable Housing is the first of a three-part series of pamphlets investigating the causes of, and solutions to, Britain’s housing shortage. Alan W. Evans and Oliver Marc Hartwich ask how Britain’s housing has become the laughing stock of Western Europe.

Advertising is a competitive tool. However, it is often treated with suspicion under competition law. This doctoral thesis argues that restrictions on advertising should be limited to clear cases of misleading and deceptive conduct.