We often talk about ‘Town Centres’, but defining their location and extent is surprisingly diffic... more We often talk about ‘Town Centres’, but defining their location and extent is surprisingly difficult. Their boundaries are hard to pin down and intrinsically fuzzy. Nevertheless, the British government introduced very specific policies for them in 1996 – Town Centre First Policies (TCFP) – without defining them. The semi-official definitions introduced in 2004 did not cover Scotland, only England and Wales. Using a range of variables available for the whole of Great Britain that capture all the dimensions of ‘town centredness’, we start by replicating the definitions for England and Wales. Then, we use an alternative list of towns and cities and apply our estimated coefficients to predict their size. Our models yield high correlations between the semi-official DCLG values and our predicted values, so we then move on to identify Town Centres for all three countries of GB. Our method is a contribution in its own right but is also an essential step if there is to be a rigorous evaluati...
Posted by Christian Hilber and Paul Cheshire, SERC and LSE QuantitativeEasing (QE) has been pursu... more Posted by Christian Hilber and Paul Cheshire, SERC and LSE QuantitativeEasing (QE) has been pursued by Central Banks in many countries, few more diligently than in the US and in the UK. Reports from experienced watchers of commercial real estate suggest this could generate a flood of cheap money – not into productive investment but into the higher yields offered by commercial real estate or its liquid versions, Real Estate Investment Trusts. This is because QE pushes yields on bonds and securities ever further below the rate of inflation. Such shifts are already said to be visible in the US where the economy is doing just a bit better than in the UK or Europe. Of course this pushes down yields in real estate in proportion to pushing up market values. According to the FT (£) there could already be signs of this in London.
Discussing the potential effects of the COVID-19 lockdown on housing, Paul Cheshire and Christian... more Discussing the potential effects of the COVID-19 lockdown on housing, Paul Cheshire and Christian Hilber write that real house prices and rents may fall in the short- to medium-term. Yet housing will remain unaffordable for the young and those on lower incomes, especially in London and the South East, as this fall will be driven by a fall in earnings.
Discussing the potential effects of COVID-19 on housing, Paul Cheshire and Christian Hilber write... more Discussing the potential effects of COVID-19 on housing, Paul Cheshire and Christian Hilber write that real house prices and rents may initially fall. Yet housing will remain unaffordable for the young and those on lower incomes, especially in London and the South East, as this fall will be driven by a fall in earnings.
We often talk about ‘Town Centres’, but defining their location and extent is surprisingly diffic... more We often talk about ‘Town Centres’, but defining their location and extent is surprisingly difficult. Their boundaries are hard to pin down and intrinsically fuzzy. Nevertheless, the British government introduced very specific policies for them in 1996 – Town Centre First Policies (TCFP) – without defining them. The semi-official definitions introduced in 2004 did not cover Scotland, only England and Wales. Using a range of variables available for the whole of Great Britain that capture all the dimensions of ‘town centredness’, we start by replicating the definitions for England and Wales. Then, we use an alternative list of towns and cities and apply our estimated coefficients to predict their size. Our models yield high correlations between the semi-official DCLG values and our predicted values, so we then move on to identify Town Centres for all three countries of GB. Our method is a contribution in its own right but is also an essential step if there is to be a rigorous evaluati...
Posted by Christian Hilber and Paul Cheshire, SERC and LSE QuantitativeEasing (QE) has been pursu... more Posted by Christian Hilber and Paul Cheshire, SERC and LSE QuantitativeEasing (QE) has been pursued by Central Banks in many countries, few more diligently than in the US and in the UK. Reports from experienced watchers of commercial real estate suggest this could generate a flood of cheap money – not into productive investment but into the higher yields offered by commercial real estate or its liquid versions, Real Estate Investment Trusts. This is because QE pushes yields on bonds and securities ever further below the rate of inflation. Such shifts are already said to be visible in the US where the economy is doing just a bit better than in the UK or Europe. Of course this pushes down yields in real estate in proportion to pushing up market values. According to the FT (£) there could already be signs of this in London.
Discussing the potential effects of the COVID-19 lockdown on housing, Paul Cheshire and Christian... more Discussing the potential effects of the COVID-19 lockdown on housing, Paul Cheshire and Christian Hilber write that real house prices and rents may fall in the short- to medium-term. Yet housing will remain unaffordable for the young and those on lower incomes, especially in London and the South East, as this fall will be driven by a fall in earnings.
Discussing the potential effects of COVID-19 on housing, Paul Cheshire and Christian Hilber write... more Discussing the potential effects of COVID-19 on housing, Paul Cheshire and Christian Hilber write that real house prices and rents may initially fall. Yet housing will remain unaffordable for the young and those on lower incomes, especially in London and the South East, as this fall will be driven by a fall in earnings.
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