by Jim Rose in applied welfare economics, economics of regulation, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality, Rawls and Nozick, rentseeking, urban economics

Source: No, Mr English, housing costs are not a key cause of inequality – Inequality: A New Zealand Conversation

Rashbrooke then goes on to discuss how housing costs were not a main driver of the growing gap between the top 10% and the bottom 10% of the income distribution in New Zealand. My point is he is more concerned with the politics of envy than with building political support for action against poverty.

Rashbrooke showed that the main driver of poverty in New Zealand is rising housing costs. That is easy to redress but for the opposition of the left-wing parties to reforms to the Resource Management Act that will increase the supply of land and thereby drive down housing costs and rents.

Housing costs gobbled up much of the rising incomes of the poor for many years now in New Zealand as Rashbrooke showed today. The New Zealand Labor Party and New Zealand Greens are doing nothing about it. The regulatory constraints on the supply of land could be gone by lunchtime if the self-proclaimed champions of the poor and social justice supported the reform of the RMA.

The proposals of the New Zealand Labour Party and Greens for the government to build more houses is pointless unless there is more land is supplied. If there is no increase in land supply, all the building of more houses by government does is build the same houses of private developers would have built on the same fixed supply of land. There must be an increase in the supply of land to drive housing costs down for the poor.