Developing and using a dynamic model of the housing system in England and Wales to aid understanding of the system and explore policy proposals

摘要

This thesis is an at leapt to look at the total housing system in England and Wales with the aim of improving understanding of the system and of possibly providing a tool for the evaluation of policy proposals. The method adopted was to build a computer model which would act as a prototype for an improved version.udThe first step taken was to carry out a detailed review ofudud(i)the existing households situation.ud(ii)the existing dwellings situation.ud(iii)the market and other mechanisms determining how households are allocated to dwellings.ududFrom this study, three computer sub-models wore developed. One which relatively accurately reflects the demographic pattern of households for the last ten years. The second specifying with comparable confidence, the dwelling stock and its changes over that time. The third bringing the first two together to provide a dynamic picture of ‘who lives where’.ududThese three components working together comprised the total model. Calibration following this step proved difficult and relatively crude results had to be accepted. Nevertheless, a number of experiments, in the form of suggested policy proposals, wore carried out to expose some of the potential of this broad modelling approach.ududThese wereud(i)A reduction in the present building programme.ud(ii)An increase in the sale of local authority dwellings.ud(iii)A continued decline in the birth rate.ududThe efforts to calibrate and the experimental runs provided four useful typos of informationud(i)An increased understanding of the housing system.ud(ii)Insights into modelling such a system,ud(iii)Research and data collection requirements.ud(iv)Guidelines for policy makers.ududThe conclusions are discussed in Chapter Eight. The most significant would appear to beud(i)The actual process of formalizing this dynamic model has proved to be of immense value in structuring the process of learning about the housing system*ud(ii)There is a severe lack of a clearly defined and consistent sot of housing objectives and hence also of a proper definition of 'the housing problem’.ud(iii)Problems exist in unravelling the mass of data to support the rigorous demands of a computer model.ud(iv)The learning experience from this type of model development needs to be embedded more deeply into the decision making process. It is recommended that any future model should be developed in close liaison with government policy makers.