Thomas is founder of Credit Capital Advisory and was director of CPP’s predecessor, the Centre for Progressive Capitalism. He previously ran credit and economic analytics businesses serving as the managing director of Fitch Solutions and Thomson Datastream. He has written widely on financial and economic issues including Profiting from Monetary Policy (Palgrave 2012) and co-authored Prediction Markets: The end of the regulatory state? (2007) with Professor Frank Vibert.
Centre Director Thomas Aubrey argues that the Chancellor Philip Hammond must act in the upcoming budget to end monopolistic pricing in the land market if the government is to tackle the housing crisis
In 1884 the Republican Party was accused by Major General Ben Butler, a former Republican, as being the “Party of Monopolists”. Butler was outraged that a banquet for the Republican presidential candidate attended by the country’s millionaires and monopolists sealed their allegiance to the party.
Continue reading “End this monopoly now Mr Hammond if you want to solve the housing crisis”
Use the rise in land value to build 150,000 new homes and invest £8bn in infrastructure along the Cambridge to Oxford corridor
Use rise in land value to build 150,000 new homes and invest £8bn in infrastructure along the Cambridge to Oxford corridor
As the Chancellor starts preparing for his Autumn Budget, increasing investment in housing and infrastructure will be towards the top of his priority list. The challenge for Philip Hammond is that the uncertainty surrounding Brexit has negatively impacted the economy, leaving him less wiggle room than he had previously hoped.
Continue reading “What the Chancellor’s Autumn Budget needs to say”
With a change to the 1961 Land Compensation Act, the necessary investment in infrastructure and affordable housing along the Oxford – Milton Keynes – Cambridge corridor could be funded
The 2017 general election engendered a surprising, but welcome cross-party consensus that the municipality should benefit from the rise in land values to fund infrastructure, opening up new land for housing. Indeed, it was mentioned in both major party manifestos. Extensive research by the Centre for Progressive Capitalism has estimated that England alone could generate up to £185 billion of incremental investment over the next 20 years. Continue reading “Market prices and the housing crisis”
The British people have spoken loud and clear by returning a hung parliament. They have rejected a hard Brexit and a drift towards nationalism. But they have also rejected a return to the neoliberalism of the 1980s and the socialism of the 1970s.
The British people have spoken loud and clear by returning a hung parliament. They have rejected a hard Brexit and a drift towards nationalism. But they have also rejected a return to the neoliberalism of the 1980s and the socialism of the 1970s. Continue reading “The British electorate moves beyond neoliberalism, nationalism and socialism”
Writing for Inside Housing, centre director Thomas Aubrey argues that it should be dynamic city regions, not unproductive landowners, that capture the uplift in land value when housing is built.
Writing for Inside Housing, centre director Thomas Aubrey argues that it should be dynamic city regions, not unproductive landowners, that capture the uplift in land value when housing is built.
Continue reading “Landowners should not reap all the benefits from development”
Centre director Thomas Aubrey sets out the case for the new land compensation rules, showing that they will will drive up infrastructure investment and raise the rate of housebuilding
Land value capture is an idea that appears to have come of age in the United Kingdom. Last weekend, the Conservative Party announced it intended to address long-standing compensation rules as a key plank of its housing policy. These rules have acted as a major barrier to infrastructure investment, which is one of the reasons why housing supply has not been able to keep up with demand.
Writing for CapX, director of the Centre for Progressive Capitalism Thomas Aubrey argues that the current business rates system is not fit for a dynamic 21st century economy.
The government ought to provide the Competition & Markets Authority with broader powers to prevent the acquisition of UK firms if this reduces competition at national, regional or global level. Such a change will likely spur innovation in search for other sources of earnings growth, which may lead to greater investment and productivity
Earlier in my career as a management consultant, I once questioned a CEO on his firm’s low level of organic growth.
“Much easier to buy market share!” he responded with a grin.
The recent failed acquisition of Unilever by Kraft Heinz reminded me of this quip. Kraft Heinz is a large consumer goods conglomerate with around $27bn in annualised net sales and organic growth of 1.6% year on year. In contrast, the much larger Unilever has €53bn in turnover, which fell by 1% year on year.
Continue reading “Why Britain’s lax competition framework needs to change”
A recent blog post by Lichfields suggested that the government’s housing White Paper has been excessively criticised by housing commentators. They go further stating that the white paper “leaves enough flexibility in the process to reflect spatial variation and it stops short of gimmicks.” Lichfields raises an important issue as the housing white paper does indeed contain wide ranging options to address a number of issues that have plagued the UK’s inability to raise its long-term trend of housebuilding. Continue reading “Sustaining profitable growth in volatile markets”
