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Changes in the Distribution of Housing Wealth in Great Britain, 1985‐91
Author(s) -
Henley Andrew
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
economica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.532
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1468-0335
pISSN - 0013-0427
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0335.00134
Subject(s) - economics , equity (law) , labour economics , order (exchange) , inequality , distribution (mathematics) , capital (architecture) , house price , finance , monetary economics , geography , mathematical analysis , mathematics , archaeology , political science , law
The second half of the 1980s was a particularly turbulent time for the British housing market, during which time sizeable real capital gains accrued to owner‐occupiers, particularly those who were already owner‐occupiers at the start of this period. The paper constructs housing wealth estimates disaggregated by household from the 1985 GHS and 1991 BHPS Wave 1 in order to explain the distributional consequences of the housing market experience. The paper finds that there has been a modest increase in housing wealth inequality, but one that is more pronounced for gross housing wealth compared with equity. This growth has been offset by the growth in owner‐occupation and the benefits of the council house right‐to‐buy scheme.