The finance of housing in Great Britain 1919-1949.

• Main Author: MacIntosh, Robert Mallory.
• Other Authors: Marsh, D. (Supervisor)
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: McGill University 1952
• Subjects: HOUSING > ENGLAND
• Online Access: http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=123952

Since the end of the second World War, the development of economic theory has proceeded in two paths: on the one hand there has been the task of consolidating the achievements of Keynesian doctrine and of welding the new aggregative concepts to the main body of neo-classical thought; on the other hand a vanguard of theorists has ventured into the little-explored territory of economic dynamics. As always, the systematic development of supporting historical and institutional data goes on behind the front-runners. This thesis is concerned mainly with the former of these developments. It deals with the monetary aspects of private investment in a single sector of the economy, and attempts to resolve certain differences between the traditional and the modern approaches to money matters. As such, it might be called a study in the applied theory of interest. Expressed otherwise, the thesis examines the financial mechanism by means of which the gap between savings and investment in the mortgage market was bridged in Great Britain. The most general conclusion drawn from the study is that the institutional framework distorted the allocation of loanable funds and served to impede the functioning of the price mechanism. This being the case, a monetary policy based on the assumption of a freely operating price system in the money market was bound to be unrealistic. The contributions of this thesis fall under three headings. [...]