Housing Costs and Policies 

At this lunchtime seminar Dr Peter Abelson will provide a comprehensive overview of housing prices, affordability and policies with special reference to Sydney. He will provide key housing market data, describe the drivers of house prices and assess housing affordability for housing renters and home owners. He will then outline housing policy objectives and assess in some detail four sets of housing policies. These policies are: increasing housing supply, reducing housing demand, core policies for supporting low income households and various special affordable housing policies.  

About the Speaker

Dr Peter Abelson gained a Ph.D from London University for his dissertation on “House Prices in Australia”. Following an early career in international consulting, Peter worked at Macquarie University from 1974 to 2005, holding a Chair in Economics from 2001 to 2005. From 2006 to the present, Peter has been Director of economic consultancy, Applied Economics P/L, and a Principal Part-Time Advisor to the NSW Treasury. From 2006 to 2012, Peter was a Visiting Scholar at Sydney University teaching pubic finance. From 2012 to the present, Peter has been the popularly elected Mayor of Mosman Council. Peter is a past President of the NSW Branch of the Economic Society of Australia (1988-90) and was Hon. Secretary of the Economic Society of Australia from 1993 to 2006.