Housing economics - turning 'generation rent' into 'generation buy'

Larry Elliott's column looks at the state of the UK housing market and notes that despite the state of the economy, house price growth remains strong.

He identifies the structural factors responsible for this - not least a precipitous decline in housebuilding since 1988, existing planning legislation and the system of taxation.

As a result, he highlights a paper by Gerard Lyons, who worked with Boris Johnson when the latter was mayor of London. In it, he calls for concerted action to overcome both demand and supply-side failings, with the former to be achieved by the creation of a blended mortgage market.

It's interesting - although the fact that the problem hasn't been resolved in the last 30 years perhaps indicates how intractable it is.