Many MPs urged gov't to include rent controls in Renters Rights Bill last week (see )
But @mtpennycook & @AngelaRayner argued rent controls wld reduce supply of homes

Short🧵w/ data to show this risk is small & can be mitigated, and benefits outweigh costs t.ly/VZ79- 1) I'm analysing impact of rent reductions on landlord profit margins using HMRC data. The impacts are marginal; vast majority of landlords have large profit margins. (Can't share results publicly yet, report to be published by @NEF, but happy to share with Labour's housing team)

Woop, my new article – a deep dive into understandings of rent, rentier power & rent-seeking – is online @NPEjournal (open access)!
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

Turns out ‘rent’ is a highly contested concept & the way we define it has significant real world consequences...

1/ Almost everyone uses the term rent in a pejorative way, to cast incomes as unearned and/or inefficient.

But when you scratch beneath the surface, you find people using very different (sometimes v confused) definitions of rent, with very different normative implications.

2/

I wrote this for @openDemocracy b/c I was fed up of green growthers & degrowthers talking past each other.

Those who care about environmental & economic justice on both sides of this debate are closer than they think to consensus...

THREAD
1/
bit.ly/2JK0vz9 Everyone acknowledges now that GDP is a poor measure of progress.

According to recent #Reset report 2/3 of public want gov't to prioritise health/wellbeing over GDP (bit.ly/3hzKiYk)

This isn’t gonna happen while our economy is dependent on growth for its stability.
2/

*HOT OFF THE PRESS*

My first journal article!

The Threat of Rent Extraction in a Resource-constrained Future

sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

I won't try to shoehorn the whole argument into a twitter thread, but to whet your appetite: The starting point for the article is the conclusion reached by most ecological economists:

Caps on resource extraction (if commensurate with what is required to avert ecological collapse) are v likely to constrain the scale of total production & consumption as measured by GDP.

Appalling to see how the Tories are using our #LandForTheMany report to scaremonger. First, these are *recommendations* to Labour and not Labour Party policy. But even if our report did represent party policy, the Tories are grossly misrepresenting its proposals: 1) the Tories claim Labour will introduce a ‘Movers Tax’, selectively quoting our report as evidence. In fact we *rejected* the idea of taxing the capital gains on main residences, and instead follow @IPPR & @resfoundation in calling for an overhaul of inheritance tax system.

A thread on "Right To Buy for private tenants" that @johnmcdonnellMP and @UKLabour are considering and which was discussed briefly by @michaeljswalker & @AaronBastani on a recent @novaramedia podcast - some concerns and an alternative suggestion for achieving same goal 1/n @johnmcdonnellMP @UKLabour @michaeljswalker @AaronBastani @novaramedia I endorse the principle that we should help tenants who want to escape the private rented sector to do so, and that we should find ways of sharing out some of the eye-watering windfall gains and rent extraction that landlords have enjoyed throughout housing boom/crisis.
2/n

Getting lots of Qs about this graph! If housing shortage is not cause of house price inflation then what is? *Mainly* increased demand from landlords/speculators/elites & increased purchasing power from deregulated mortgage markets. For evidence/detail see landforthemany.uk/3-for-the-many…

https://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/1139081913644326912

NB. population is not good proxy for housing need, which is why I've also made graphs looking at ratio of housing stock to households.

Dear @BBCRadio4, I'm disappointed that your half hour analysis of housing crisis #TheBriefingRoom failed to EVEN MENTION 3 of the most significant drivers of house price rises: financial deregulation, the Buy To Let frenzy & the flaws of our speculative house building model 1/13 Worse, Andrew Whittaker went completely unchallenged when he asserted that main reason homes don’t get built is planning authorities don't allocate enough land for housing. FAR more significant barrier is our dysfunctional land market & ’speculative’ model of house building 2/13