Christine Whitehead

Emeritus Professor of Housing Economics, Department of Economics
Deputy Director, LSE London; Associate, Department of Geography

Christine is an internationally respected applied economist working mainly in the fields of housing economics, finance and policy.

She has worked with a wide range of international agencies as well as regularly for the UK government and Parliament. She was Director of the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research from 1990 to 2010 as well as Professor at LSE.

Major themes in her recent research have included analysis of the relationship between planning and housing; the role of private renting in the UK and in European housing systems; financing social housing in the UK and Europe; and more broadly the application of economic concepts and techniques to questions of public resource allocation with respect to housing, education, policing and urban regeneration. Latterly a particular issue has been around accelerating housing development in London.

Her latest books Milestones in European Housing Finance, jointly edited with Jens Lunde and Planning Gain: Providing Infrastructure and Affordable Housing, jointly editedwith Tony Crook and John Hennebury, were published in 2016.

She is special advisor to the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee including latterly inquiries into Land Value Capture; housing for the elderly; and the private rented sector. She is currently a member of the Letwin panel on Build Out Rates. She was awarded the OBE for services to housing in 1991.

She is currently adviser to the House of Commons Work and Pensions committee on their inquiry into welfare support for housing costs and latterly for Communities and Local Government Select Committee on private renting. She was awarded the OBE for services to housing in 1991.

Expertise

Housing Finance; Housing Policy; Privatisation; Urban Land Markets; Urban Policy