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Entrepreneurship and Government Policy: The Case of the Housing Market*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Mary K. Farmer  and
Ray Barrell
Mary K. Farmer
Affiliation:
Sociology, School of Social Sciences, University of Sussex
Ray Barrell
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Brunel University
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Abstract

This article discusses the use made of the ‘Austrian’ concept of entrepreneurship in the present British government's policy discussions, and, using an ‘Austrian’ method of argument, demonstrates that there is a deep-seated inconsistency in its policies which suggests that it, along with the administrations of a number of other western democracies including the United States, has not fully understood the implications of the doctrines to which it appears to have committed itself. This inconsistency relates to its continued support for the existing structure of subsidies in the UK housing market which, it is argued, have made private home-buying so profitable an activity for entrepreneurial individuals as to substantially reduce the attractiveness of the option of setting up new businesses. Whether or not the government is right to believe that, in an economic environment with greater incentives, there would be a great expansion in individual entrepreneurial effort in ‘productive’ activities, this is not likely to happen whilst, amongst other things, the structure of housing subsidies remains substantially unchanged. We suggest, in the light of comparative international evidence, that a better alternative is available.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Public Policy , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , August 1981 , pp. 307 - 332
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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