I want to share a new paper. Its relevant to #GE2019. The findings are quite exemplary of the misguidedness of much of economic & social policy under the #ConservativeParty. It should be a harbinger to wary voters: there is more of the same under the Tories & with #Brexit. 1/.. 
The short summary: the reform to housing benefit from 2011 onwards was intended to save the public purse hundreds of millions. But quite the reverse happened: not only did it create huge amounts of misery and agony, it also ended up not saving the public much money at all. 2/..
What happened? From April 2011 onwards, local housing allowance was massively cut from covering up to the median level of rents, to only cover up to the 30th percentile of market rents. Here is a map of how this affected households in terms of expected losses per week. 3/..
On average, households in private rented sector PRS lost GBP 500 per year. In urban areas, particularly London the loss amounted to easily up GBP 2400 per year. Across the UK, an estimated 700k-1 million households were affected - or between 17-25% of all households in #PRS 4/..
What was the impact? In the paper we carefully trace out the impact of this cut. We find: the cut increased forced evictions in private rented sector by 21%; individual bankruptcies by 3%; theft from persons and burglaries by 25%... 5/..
We see a dramatic increase (17.8 %) in households living in temp accommodation; statutory homelessness goes up by 13.2% & rough sleeping by 36.7%. There are 135k children spending Christmas in shelters & many go regularly hungry see @C4Dispatches: 6/..
This is hugely costly in the long term: housing insecurity has pervasive effects on the achievement of children (Chyn, 2018), it is a harbinger of poor health (Fowler et al., 2015); increases the chances of being laid off from work (Desmond and Gershenson, 2016). 7/..
We know this is a huge costly social policy choice. But even in the short, term it turned out to be very costly. Why? The increase in homelessness to whom councils owe a duty implied that councils had to dramatically increase spending on homelessness prevention measures. 8/..
The cost of temporary accommodation, such as bed and breakfasts, hostels has shot up by 94%. In many cases, local councils now have to lease or rent former council homes that were sold off from private landlords/investors -- guess what, at market rents! 9/...
And this is where fiscally things go full circle. We estimate that the savings to the @DWP for cutting housing benefit amounted to around GBP 500 million; we also estimate that council spending for homeless prevention measures has shot up by at least GBP 265 million. 10/...
As councils have limited means of raising revenues, let alone issue debt, they are left with cutting services elsewhere to pay for these extra costs. Fiscally, this policy likely did not save a penny due to the costs associated with higher crime, evictions, bankruptcies,... 11/..
But it gets even worse: the cuts erode democratic participation. We document that electoral registration rates declined sharply, and, it very likely affected the 2016 #EURef vote by shifting the composition of those that turn out or engage with democratic processes. 12/..
After all, democratic participation likely is a normal good with a positive income elasticity; if you hardly can make ends meet and live in insecure accommodation, making sure your details on electoral roll are up to date are second order. 13/..
On Thursday #GE2019, this country choses. The #ConservativeParty is fighting this election with deception & contempt. Only #TacticalVoting can prevent a continuation of the status quo & bring about a resolution. One thing is guaranteed #Brexit will bring more #austerity not less.
Read the whole paper with the title "Housing insecurity, homelessness and populism: Evidence from the UK" here: bit.ly/2sX0FdQ @warwickecon @warwicknewsroom
@warwickecon @warwicknewsroom I should add, the paper is joint work with my fantastic coauthor, colleague and fellow @LSEEcon graduate @pedroclsouza and @warwickecon PhD student Srinjoy Sen.
