Betting the House

by | Feb 24, 2010


On Tuesday (March 2nd), I am speaking at a seminar on resilience in the UK housing market.

The seminar picks up on my recent paper for the Long Finance Foundation (download it here). The argument in a nutshell:

(1) Housing is probably the biggest economic risk facing the UK – more important even than the deficit; (2) Houses are overpriced – and the fiscal stimulus appears to have reinflated the housing bubble; (3) Mortgages are sold in such a way as to play on borrowers’ cognitive biases – this is bad for many individuals, and systemically disastrous; (4) The FSA’s proposals for reform are half hearted – we’re missing a huge opportunity to rethink how people make long-term financial decisions.

On the panel to discuss the paper, Long Finance’s Michael Mainelli, BrightonRock’s Con Keating, and Channel 4’s Faisal Islam.

It’s at Gresham College at 2.30 – please come along if you can.

Author

  • David Steven is a senior fellow at the UN Foundation and at New York University, where he founded the Global Partnership to End Violence against Children and the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies, a multi-stakeholder partnership to deliver the SDG targets for preventing all forms of violence, strengthening governance, and promoting justice and inclusion. He was lead author for the ministerial Task Force on Justice for All and senior external adviser for the UN-World Bank flagship study on prevention, Pathways for Peace. He is a former senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-author of The Risk Pivot: Great Powers, International Security, and the Energy Revolution (Brookings Institution Press, 2014). In 2001, he helped develop and launch the UK’s network of climate diplomats. David lives in and works from Pisa, Italy.

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