'Understanding Housing Finance' is an accessible and up-to-date introduction for those beginning their studies and will be a useful reference for more advanced students. It includes clear learning objectives and summaries in each chapter.

Housing bubbles burst, creating economic misery for millions. Over the past thirty years, the culture of property ownership has become so ingrained that policy makers, bankers and households have taken for granted that housing is a good investment and forgotten about the bust. Explaining how the current crisis in housing markets has arisen, this topical and sharp analysis considers the causes of house price bubbles and the reason for the collapse in markets worldwide. Written for students, it explains the economic cycle of housing, ways in which future booms and busts can be mitigated and how...

One of the biggest challenges for students of housing is understanding the financial principles which underpin the place of housing in the wider economy. By taking a political economy approach, Peter King's Understanding Housing Finance makes the basic principles of the subject accessible, without requiring detailed prior knowledge of economics or financial systems.

The book explains housing finance by exploring the way in which markets and governments react together. It takes a conceptual approach to consider the advantages and limits of housing markets and why...

Housing bubbles burst, creating economic misery for millions. Over the past thirty years, the culture of property ownership has become so ingrained that policy makers, bankers and households have taken for granted that housing is a good investment and forgotten about the bust. Explaining how the current crisis in housing markets has arisen, this topical and sharp analysis considers the causes of house price bubbles and the reason for the collapse in markets worldwide. Written for students, it explains the economic cycle of housing, ways in which future booms and busts can be mitigated and how...

The works translated here deal with two major themes in the thinking of St Augustine (354 430): free will and divine grace. On the one hand, free will enables human beings to make their own choices; on the other hand, God's grace is required for these choices to be efficacious. 'On the Free Choice of the Will', 'On Grace and Free Choice', 'On Reprimand and Grace' and 'On the Gift of Perseverance' set out Augustine's theory of human responsibility, and sketch a subtle reconciliation of will and grace. This volume is the first to bring together Augustine's early and later writings on these two...

Published to coincide with the first anniversary of the election, this book looks at the Coalition government in the context of conservative ideas and seeks to assess what, if anything, is new about it.

Much of social and political thought over the last three centuries has been concerned with transgression and change, with progress and a focus on creating something better than we have now. But when many of these ideas are put into practice the result has been violence, turmoil and human misery. This, we might say, has been the result of grand ideals taking precedence over the interests of ordinary people. This book presents an alternative view: the antimodern condition. This involves the rejection of change and progress and instead seeks to promote certainty, permanence and settlement. The...

This title was first published in 2003. This text seeks to show the importance of housing to individuals and in the broader context of social welfare. It offers a universal philosophical justification for housing provision based on a detailed theoretical consideration of need, choice, rights and responsibility. The implications of basing housing policies on these concepts are considered. Dr Peter King suggests that we should see housing as, above all, a pre-requisite for human flourishing. As such it is an essentially private activity. As a consequence, he argues, housing policy should be...

This book consists of a single essay that speculates on the question what is housing?, and its opposite question, what is not housing? The essay is organised around two distinct discourses around which housing can be framed. The first, which is the dominant discourse, is what I term policy thinking. This is where housing is seen solely in terms of policy formulation and action. The second discourse is private dwelling, which describes housing in terms of a private space used by households. Private dwelling might be seen as a product of policy, but, in actuality, it precedes policy thinking in...