The File
Housing affordability has deteriorated across the UK and US over decades, tracked directly through OECD price-to-income data and examined by the Bank of England's own research into how housing risk transmits through the broader economy. The price-to-income ratio, the OECD's own measure of affordability, is the anchor metric behind this exhibit.
The Documented Record
The OECD's price-to-income ratio, its measure of housing affordability, is calculated as the nominal house price index divided by nominal disposable income per head. [DOCUMENTED]
The OECD maintains ongoing house price index data, both real and nominal, used to assess trends in the housing market across member countries. [DOCUMENTED]
The Bank of England has developed a house price-at-risk framework to track and decompose different parts of the house price distribution over time. [DOCUMENTED]
Separate Bank of England research examines how monetary policy transmits through the housing sector and how that channel influences broader macroeconomic outcomes. [DOCUMENTED]
Additional Bank of England research examines the housing-consumption channel of mortgage demand, using variation in transaction taxes to identify how mortgage borrowing affects household consumption. [DOCUMENTED]
What the Record Does Not Establish
The record does not establish a single, specific policy decision responsible for the affordability decline documented in the OECD data, since the Bank of England's own research treats housing stress as an outcome of multiple interacting channels, monetary transmission, mortgage demand, and consumption effects, rather than one isolated cause. What is documented is the affordability measure itself and a body of central bank research treating housing as a channel through which broader economic policy produces measurable household-level effects.
Sources
- Housing Prices, OECD
- Housing prices data series, OECD
- Developing a House Price-at-Risk Framework for the UK, Bank of England
- Monetary Transmission Through the Housing Sector, Bank of England
- Housing-Consumption Channel of Mortgage Demand, Bank of England
Connected Files
ECON-006 documents a separate nonprofit fraud architecture for structural comparison.