Leadership in Teaching Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Leadership in Teaching - Research Paper Example Teaching as a profession requires specific traits in order for a teacher to be effective in achieving for students academic success. There are numerous theories that explore this theme. For instance, Sharick (2007) argued that teachers should have social traits in order to be able to communicate effectively with the students.A â€Å"social† teacher in this theory is one that could display dominant characteristics like that of being enterprising, investigative and a capacity for empathy, among others. The idea is that the relationship between a teacher and the students complement the transfer of knowledge. The concept of leadership, though not a prominent element in this model as suggested by the researcher, can also be considered a social trait. It plays an important role in the way students learn from instruction and classroom interaction because it underpins the efficacy of the social interaction. It takes advantage of the relationship in order to have an authoritative proce ss by which knowledge is imparted and received. Simply put, leadership provides the framework by which a teacher could control the teaching process successfully. Leadership and Best Practice in Teaching Leadership is increasingly becoming a byword in the literature on current best practices in teaching and educational improvement. York-Barr and Duke explained that this is because it is aligned with the notion of individual empowerment and localization of management (p. 255). In this respect, teachers are sought to be empowered and have greater degree of control, with an expanded role in the classroom instruction. This has been the trend in the United States since the 1980s, when leadership came to be considered as an integral component of teacher professionalism (York-Barr and Duke, p. 256). The educational reform aimed to replace the traditional framework of the technical model, which emphasized the transfer of knowledge through systematic inquiry. The new goal is to focus and rely on the teachers’ capability, knowledge and judgment. Leadership figures prominently in this aspect because it allows the teachers to exercise and implement academic decisions, in addition to helping lead pursue educational initiatives. The study conducted by Camburn, Rowan and Taylor in 2003, which evaluated the efficacy of the educational reform found that academic progress was, in fact, achieved in the process. Particularly, the study revealed that those educational reforms that integrated leadership components such as the distributive leadership schemes led to positive outcomes both in the capabilities of the teacher and the students’ academic performance (p. 367). There are numerous studies that reflect these findings. A case in point is that by Ross and Gray (2006), which found that schools with higher levels of transformational leadership had higher collective teacher efficacy, greater teacher commitment to school mission, school community, school-community part nerships, and higher student achievement (p. 798). Also, Copland (2003), in his study of the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative program, found that leadership works well with inquiry-based approach, with distributive leadership playing an important role in implementing inquiry-based practice and collective decision-making at school (p. 375). The empirical evidences that support how leadership contributes to positive student learning outcome are not that surprising. Aside from the quantified direct and positive leadership impact represented by effective cognitive learning outcomes, there is also the deeper socio-psychological discourse that covers education and learning. Here, leadership is critical because it plays an important part in the transformation of behaviors. Encouraging Leaders, Imparting Values According to LeComte (1978), going to school is a socialization process wherein teachers transmit skills, aspirations, norms and behavioral patterns which assist in the assumptio n of roles (p. 22). This is demonstrated in observing the classroom

The Wayne Williams Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Wayne Williams - Case Study Example Early fiber evidence collected showed 2 types of fibers present at the crime scene; "a violet-colored acetate fiber and a coarse yellow-green nylon fiber with the type of tri-lobed qualities associated with carpets". The yellow-green carpet fiber that was found on the body of Cater was later compared and analyzed alongside a similar looking yellow-green carpet that was found at the home of Williams. He used the carpet to cover the floor of his home. The carpet, thanks to the cooperation of the manufacturer DuPont, was traced down to the company that manufactured the fiber known as Wellman 181B, a common carpet that was commercially sold by the manufacturer. Due to the high volume of carpet sales, connecting the yellow-green carpet to Williams and the murder became a game of odds. The importance of connecting the fiber to him became even more imperative when the dog that Williams owned showed up on the body of other murder victims as part of trace fibers (Ramsland, K., â€Å"Fibers a nd Probability Theory†). In an effort to create a convincing case, the prosecution decided to include a 2nd victim in the Williams murder trial. That of Jimmy Ray Payne who had trace fibers similar to those found in Williams' car, a single rayon fiber that was consistent with the carpeting in Williams' station wagon. Chevrolet, the car manufacturer informed investigators that there was a; â€Å"1 in 3,828 chance that Payne had acquired the fiber via random contact with a car that had this carpeting installed.†... The importance of connecting the fiber to him became even more imperative when the dog that Williams owned showed up on the body of other murder victims as part of trace fibers (Ramsland, K., â€Å"Fibers and Probability Theory†). In an effort to create a convincing case, the prosecution decided to include a 2nd victim in the Williams murder trial. That of Jimmy Ray Payne who had trace fibers similar to those found in Williams' car, a single rayon fiber that was consistent with the carpeting in Williams' station wagon. Chevrolet, the car manufacturer informed investigators that there was a; â€Å"1 in 3,828 chance that Payne had acquired the fiber via random contact with a car that had this carpeting installed.† (Ramsland, K., â€Å"Fibers and Probability Theory†). By introducing trace fibers from the 10 other murders that held similarities to the fiber collected from the home and car of Williams, the prosecution was effectively allowed to build its case by the G eorgia courts. The investigation of the Williams serial murders came down to a numbers game simply because of the trace evidence found at the scene of the crime for each victim. Every time a comparison was done, there was a similarity either with the car or home carpet fiber of Williams. During that era of early forensic investigation, these similarities were considered damning evidence that in theory, proved who committed the crime. When combined with the fact that the prosecution successfully connected 28 fiber types to Williams, along with testimony from witnesses who swore that they had actually seen him with each of the murder victims, the fact that Williams failed his polygraph test 3 times, and the suspicious injuries that were

Group Incentives Paper Essay Example for Free

Group Incentives Paper Essay Working on teams has been a part of many of the organizations I have been a part of however the majority of the time it isn’t easy to apply team concepts to each scenario. Throughout my life I have played sports, been a part of search and rescue organizations, the military, learning teams and other volunteer organizations such as the sheriff’s department. In the Army we work in teams within each department for an individual unit all providing support for the unit and units under our unit. It is the ability for the team to work with a cohesiveness and pull together each other’s personal strengths to accomplish the teams overall objectives. As a team, design two incentives created specifically for your team’s dynamics. In the unit I work in I am a part of an Operations section which is the heart and soul of the unit. Within the section each soldier is responsible for an individual area of tasking that contributes to the overall success of the unit. There is an Officer, a Non-Commissioned Officer (enlisted similar to a team manager), his assistant who serves more of an immediate supervisor and then each team member. Although we are all work in different positions performing not only different tasks but different jobs altogether; yet we all have to learn and understand each other’s primary positions so that if one team member is unable to work then what other team member is available is capable of stepping in to cover that position and meet those objectives. As an immediate supervisor I am responsible for ensuring that all goals or objectives are being met by the required timelines in order for the team to succeed. I bring to the team knowledge, experience, confidence, and leadership which are my strengths. Using the list of group roles identified by Kenneth Benne and Paul Sheats(Wynn, 2012) I fall in the category of coordinator; because of the team dynamics the members aren’t necessarily junior in position or rank which means they are self motivators as well as have their own unique skill sets and experience levels that they bring to the team. Therefore I have found that the leadership style that I bring as a coordinator pulling together knowledge, ideas and resources from the other members of the team and utilizing them is far more effective. My ability to coordinate versus using a typical management style of strictly delegating tasks and checking the status for completion benefits the team since it avoids confrontation and dissention between the members as myself. Recognizing and showing that the knowledge and skills that each person contributes is valued by utilizing individual strengths creates a balance and synergy in the team allowing the team to easily see how their contributions affect the team’s success. Since we were deployed overseas for combat operations throughout the training period and the course of the year more junior soldiers as well as peers were able to learn from my previous combat experience and the knowledge I have gained as well as encouraging others to share their unique skills as knowledge has fostered an environment that encourages sharing versus focusing more narrowly on one person alone. Negative Effects of Individual Strengths There have been times that it isn’t always beneficial to simply coordinate a tasking or try to go with the flow to avoid conflict. A high performance team that has a cumulative amount of skills and knowledge from a diverse background must at times be directed and have tasks delegated when there is conflict or a lack of cooperation between members of the team. The drawback of a team being together for long periods of time is that as it moves through all of the stages eventually it has to break up and members of the team move to other teams and projects. Within this scenario a team not only works together, eats together, lives together and exercises together with very little time to break away from the team and therefore with have a higher level of stress compounded by separation from many other norms as well as the overall austere working conditions. During situations such as this it is not always beneficial to stay with one leadership or management style instead you have to le arn to adapt to the groups culture at the time and change as it changes. Room for Improvement One skill that I lack in is in a different scenario working with a learning team I have found that since the time frame for the team to move through each phase is so short and suspense times are equally so I tend to fail to become engaged earlier enough on in the process. The teams are formed at the end of the first week but not engaging until well into the end of the second week but only for a short time as the requirement for the team to perform isn’t until well into the third week I am still working mainly as an individual and failing to engage the team as early as possible. Another skill I need to work on is communication in respect to problem-solving; In this area with such as short time for a team to form, storm, norm and accomplish its objectives it is important for the team to communicate effectively any problems they are having either individually or as a team as quickly as possible to allow them to pull together resources utilizing the teams strengths to solve the pr oblem. Although I work on teams in the military often times I have been taught and needed to be capable of operating independently using personal knowledge and experience to work through a problem in isolated environments. Because of that I find that I will find myself doing so trying to struggle to work through a problem on my own instead of engaging my team, taking the time to learn and get to understand each member to allow them to come together utilizing their strengths. This process is much more effective and will tend to find solutions to a problem much more quickly. Problem solving techniques One technique I use to work through problems is a speaker- listener technique causes me to work to not simply hear but to listen to the problem to understand what the true problem is isolating it from non essential information that can cause someone to become derailed from the core issue while attempting to solve other problems that are simply effects not the cause. Another problem solving technique that I could use would be establishing a structured forum working to communicate a problem with a group or team communicating effectively and in a timely manner not letting time elapse before utilizing this method. Ultimately this would pull more resources allowing for more creative ideas that are more than one dimensional and would work to foster a more cohesive team learning environment. References McClelland, D. (1961). Methods of Measuring Human Motivation. Princeton, N.J.: Van Nostrand.

Lady Macbeth is one of the most striking characters in the play Essay Example for Free

Lady Macbeth is one of the most striking characters in the play Essay Lady Macbeth is one of the most striking characters in the play. What are your feelings toward this character and how do they change as the play progresses? What makes Lady Macbeth so striking in her first few scenes is her manipulative, vindictive nature. She is a very controlling character yet we see her troubled mind reveal itself as the play progresses. Her most famous scene, Act 5 scene 1, allows the audience to see how she has truly been affected by the murders in which she had been involved. She is sleep walking and revealing unconsciously her emotions toward the untimely deaths of King Duncan, Banquo and the Macduff household. I have little sympathy for this character because if it were not for her driving Macbeth to the murder of Duncan, he most probably would not have become so obsessed with his infatuation of becoming king. As we see in Act 1 scene 5 she is extremely ambitious about the prospect of Macbeths power increasing. She talks of murder without an ounce of guilt and merely worries over her husband being too gentle to actually commit the execution of the king. She refers to him being too full othemilk of human kindness and states that he is in fact without ambition and so would not carry out the deed properly. Her personality could, however, be extremely ambitious regardless of the state of power that her husband is in, the situation could have brought out the most of her desire. In each of her scenes we see a new side to her personality. During Act 1 scene 5 we see her praying to evil spirits in her soliloquy for her to become more masculine and evil, with any feminine attributes and natures to be stripped from her, implying that she also may need a little push to make her ambitious enough to commit the murders. This also suggests to the audience that her conscious would probably not let her commit those crimes alone. She asks the evil spirits to Come to my womans breasts/And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers. However, when Macbeth arrives home, he refers to her as my dearest love she then immediately sets about manipulating him and goading him into the murder. When she learns of Duncan coming to dinner, she administrates ideas of looking above suspicion. She tells him look like thinnocent flower/But be the serpent undert. Shakespeare uses very expressive language here with contrasting imagery of a flower (which represents good) and a serpent (which represents evil). This could also be interpreted as a metaphor for Macbeths relationship with his wife in that when Lady Macbeth is plotting murderous schemes and manipulating her husband, Macbeth is presented in a good and vulnerable light. The same applies for when Macbeth decides to take the murders further and the audience gains sympathy for his wife. Macbeth is left with little to say and is interrupted by his wife on several occasions in that scene, providing the audience with a clear insight into Shakespeares intentions for the hierarchy within the relationship. That hierarchy being where Macbeth is more or less controlled by what Lady Macbeth tells him to do, almost like a spell of her own. This provides strong evidence for those who believe that Lady Macbeth herself is a witch of some kind. In Act 1 scene 6 Duncan arrives at Macbeths castle with other various guests and originally comments on the pleasant air that it gives off, referring to it as Nimbly and sweet. This presents the audience with a dose of dramatic irony as they know that what really lies inside the castle itself is as evil and twisted as its inhabitants. He also refers to Lady Macbeth as Our honoured hostess.- The love/That follows us sometime is our trouble. The problem with Lady Macbeth in this scene is that she is elaborately polite and good natured that it could easily appear to be insincere. She tells Duncan that she has checked and double checked that everything is sufficiently in order. She tells him she will pray for him constantly and speaks of loyalty and gratitude for past kind deeds. Shakespeare is rather repetitive when it comes to Lady Macbeths lines, she speaks continuously of her homage to him and the effort they are making for him. This is in an obvious bid for her to gain their trust and it does indeed work. Duncan reacts graciously towards this most probably due to his age and gratitude for the effort made. Act 1 scene 7 sees Lady Macbeth belittling her husband in an attempt for him to agree whole heartedly to killing the king of Scotland. She uses foul phrases with appalling imagery such as telling Macbeth that while she was breast feeding her baby she would: while it was smiling in my face/Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums/And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn. She tries to come over as very menacing and heartless at this point in the play, making a point of the fact that if she had promised to kill her own child she would do so, however, after the murder of Duncan, she contradicts herself rather strongly as she comments on being able to kill her father. In Act 2 scene 2, Macbeth returns from killing the king to discuss the event with his wife. Shakespeare uses this as an opportunity for the audience to feel sympathy as we see his grief and guilt. We also get to see a very new side to Lady Macbeth, she admits that if he had not looked like her own father she would have done the deed herself, showing that underneath her hard exterior, there are elements of compassion and guilt that though she expresses little, she still feels them just like any other human being. The audience then sees her snap out of her sensitive phase and channel her emotions into reassuring and controlling her husband. She tells him to dismiss his hallucinations about the dagger and to return them to frame the guards who were guarding Duncans room. These deeds must not be thought/After these ways; so, it will make us mad. The audience could consider this as foreshadowing of what occurs as the play progresses as both Lady Macbeth and her husband experience mental disturbances because of the horrific crimes they committed. Hands are used as a metaphor throughout this scene and as an extended metaphor throughout the play. Macbeth refers to his as hangmans hands and uses phrases such as ravelled sleeve of care, whereas Lady Macbeth is far more literal and tells him to wash this filthy witness from your hand. This could be interpreted as the hands representing guilt and so each character handles the guilt in different ways; Macbeth is very open about his guilt and remorse by using dramatic devices such as personification and metaphors, for example: Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor/Shall sleep no more: Macbeth shall sleep no more. Lady Macbeth, however, deals with her culpability in a different way in that she pretends to feel nothing towards the situation but it obviously haunts her as we see in her final scene in Act 5 scene 1 where she sleep walks and hallucinates. Shakespeare illustrates this well when Lady Macbeth mocks Macbeth for being so gentle: My hands are of your colour, but I shame/To wear a heart so white. She also says rather flippantly, A little water clears us of this deed./How easy is it then! Your constancy/Hath left you unattended. Shakespeares intention for this scene, I think, was to show us that there is a sensitive, guilty side underneath her shell of ambition and malevolence. Act 2 scene 3 sees Macduff discovering Duncans murder with great astonishment. He alerts the whole castle including Banquo, Malcolm and Donaldbain of the kings death and so Lady Macbeth enters. She acts very much like thinnocent flower by pretending to be oblivious to what had happened in the previous scene, Whats the business/That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley/The sleepers of the house? Then with immense dramatic irony, Macduff replies calling her gentle lady and commenting on the fact that the talk of murderous deeds is too tender for a womans ears. The audience would find this somewhat amusing as they know that Lady Macbeth is solely responsible for the murder of Duncan and so would not in any way find the subject too sensitive or painful. She reacts in a way similar to that when she was attending to Duncan in Act 1 scene 6, where she is very elaborate in her efforts to help, creating a suspiciously false air about her. She then dramatically faints and is carried out, she is lucky that the people around her are so affected by the murder that they do not overtly notice her over the top antics. Lady Macbeth experiences a loss of power and control in Act 3 scene 2, where Macbeth arranges his next murder without her involvement. Shakespeare has her character showing compassion to her husbands sorriest fancies when he complains of insecurity about his dangerous thoughts and deeds. She tries to make him forget what has happened by instructing him: Using those thoughts which should indeed have died/With them think on? Things without all remedy/Should be without regard; whats done, is done. The audience at this moment does not know that Lady Macbeth doesnt practice these ideas herself and in fact reveals her guilt subconsciously. My feelings toward Lady Macbeth at this time are cold and my sympathy leans toward Macbeth as we see him feeling very remorseful and suicidal. He mentions, Better be with the dead/Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,/Than on the torture of the mind to lie/In restless ecstasy. However as we see a new side to Macbeth where he is plotting murders without her it does make me wonder would he have killed Duncan without her influence? Lady Macbeth presents herself as the gracious hostess once more as she invites the lords to dinner in Act 3 scene 4. At the beginning of the scene the audience is presented with the news of Banquos slaughter. Lady Macbeth suspects this but is not directly informed as her husband has somewhat distanced himself from her, implying that he does not need her influences for villainous thoughts any more, he can do it all by himself now. This scene manages to arouse some sympathy for Lady Macbeth as we see her power lessening downfall. This could be what ultimately leads to her suspected suicide. The audience gets to understand that Shakespeare did not want to present Lady Macbeth as a character who takes pleasure in the sight of bloodshed and gore, but one who craves power and enforces her ambitions upon those she can manipulate. We also see a role reversal here for the second time in the play. She already has upset the natural order of marital hierarchy from the beginning of the play where she presents herself in the dominant role which was extremely uncommon for that period. Then as the play progresses she becomes part of a downward spiral where she loses power and the status within the marriage as she becomes the more recessive figure next to her now dominant husband. The ghost of Banquo makes an appearance at the dinner table in this scene but of course only Macbeth can see (another one of his deluded hallucinations). He becomes extremely unsettled by this and begins to shout at the ghost with a fiery passion that stuns the rest of his guests. Thou canst not say I did it; never shake/Thy gory locks at me! Ross initiates the lords standing up and leaving their new king in peace to rest and collect himself but Lady Macbeth being thinnocent flower that she pretends to be assures the lords that he is fine and is just unwell. The audience feel some sort of consideration for her as we can see her husbands mental health deteriorates and her power disintegrate. She snaps at Macbeth Are you a man? as she quite obviously feels utterly embarrassed by his reactions to the ghost. She tries to use this as an opportunity to regain her status above Macbeth which is understandable as she feels defeated but is selfish considering her husbands state. In the most dramatic scene in Lady Macbeths presence on stage, the audience is given the opportunity to see the REAL Lady Macbeth as her subconscious takes over her physical state. At the beginning of her last scene, Act 5 scene 1, the doctor and gentlewoman are analysing her recent behaviour, She has light by her continually, tis her command. As light is a common metaphor for purity this insinuates that she doesnt want to be considered evil and wants to redeem herself but cant because she is too involved to dig herself out now and so her subconscious speaks the words she cannot. Out damned spot! Out, I say! One, two. Why then tis time to dot. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear? Who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? This is one of the most remembered speeches in Shakespeares literature and is so because of its quirky formation. Shakespeare has used very disjointed language with punctuation separating every short phrase. This translates to her being very edgy and emotionally unstable. She then reels off a list of other people for which she feels responsible for their deaths as well as her husband. She refers back to the common theme of hands which has occurred throughout the play. What, will these hands neer be clean? All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. O, O, O. She still refers to her hands as being little and the need for them to be sweetened and so this indicates the want for her to be filled with good and that she is feeling genuine guilt and mental anguish. This anguish finally leads to her suicide by unspecified means. Shakespeare probably chose not to present the death of Lady Macbeth on stage to add to the impact of her exit and last scene and also to be slightly ambiguous. I think a dying scene would have been effective for Lady Macbeths last scene, she could perhaps have given a soliloquy explaining how she truly was feeling. To conclude, it is evident that Shakespeare had Lady Macbeths emotional state disintegrate as the play proceeded to in effect show the downfall of a control freak. It is undecided whether or not she is pretending to be the controlling evil person which her persona appears to be but that is in a way irrelevant as it was certainly influential enough to drive her husband to multiple homicides. She was certainly a brave character for going against the Chain of Being in which God was considered to be ultimately at the top with monarchs under that and other members of society such as lords and townsfolk following after, but at the bottom were women and so she was courageous to consider herself to be above even monarchy! Though wrong it is admirable, especially considering what was said if the chain of being was to be disrupted, that chaos would arise, disrupting the natural order of life on earth and in the heavens which is seen as inexcusable. I personally think that Lady Macbeth was blamed for a lot that wasnt entirely her fault. It is implied that because Macbeth ended Banquos life and slaughtered Macduffs wife and children in a desperate bid for the throne, he was emotionally capable of murdering Duncan all by himself. In the first two acts we have little sympathy for Lady Macbeth as Shakespeare only provides the audience with her vindictive exterior, at this time we cannot see what she is truly thinking and feeling. It is only as the play progresses that we understand WHY she turns out to be the way that she is, that she has a very ambitious character and so enforces that upon her husband. She feels that Macbeth becoming king will benefit them both and sees killing the existing king as the fastest way to get to the throne. She then becomes gradually defeated as Macbeths ambition and obsession with becoming king begins to soar and spiral. She is then over-ridden with guilt and eventually feels that she cannot bear the guilt that torments her troubled mind and so decides to end it all.

Effects of the Recession on the Housing Market

Effects of the Recession on the Housing Market Introduction This part of the dissertation seeks to understand and investigate the cause of the current global recession and how it has affected the housing market in the UK. Housing Market Trends After the housing markets spectacular collapse in the 1990s, the UK housing market staged a significant revival. According to the HBOS index, the average house price stood at about  £163,000 in 2005, approximately double the  £82,000 it would have been worth in 2000. Cameron (2005) suggests that house prices surpassed their 1989 peak, relative to average household incomes. The other traditional measure of affordability, the ratio of interest payments to income, is not so overstretched, but only if capital repayments and unsecured debt are ignored. In addition, the strength of the housing market reflects the exceptional economic performance of the economy in 2005, which in turn is partially due to the sensible independent monetary policies pursued by the Bank of England Cameron (2005). As a result, it is suggested that Britain dealt with the world economic slowdown of 2001-2003 a great deal better than the majority of chief economies, producing six per cent growth. This vigorous expansion cannot completely describe the strength of the house price boom. Consequently, numerous economists have argued that there is a bubble in the British housing market, in common with a number of other countries, such as Spain, Australia, Canada, Sweden, and parts of the USA. FIGURE 1 Figure 1 shows the ratio of average house prices to average earnings, a key measure of affordability, for Great Britain and three major regions up to 2004 which is before the economic recession struck. As is visible, there is a positive contrast of cyclical behaviour in each series, with a surprising rise since 1999. According to the HBOS index, prices rose by only 1.3% over the nine months from July 2004 to April 2005. One of the main causes of this poor rise was due to the fact that many households were affected by the increases of the Bank of England base rate. Moreover, the increasing lack of demand within first time buyers, together with decreased numbers of house sales and low request rates for mortgages, implies that house prices have become separated from their underpinnings. The Nature of the Housing Market Housing markets are unusual for a number of reasons Housing markets are peculiar for a number of reasons. First, houses take time to build, so when demand rises, supply can only respond with a considerable lag. Indeed, to all intents, the short-run supply of housing is fixed. Second, houses are an asset that pays an implicit income (that is, the amount of rent that the owner saves by owning a house), so the value of the house should reflect expectations about future rents. But more importantly, since house-ownership in the UK is so widespread, a house is most householdsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ most important asset and since prices can go down as well as up, households are thereby exposed to a considerable amount of risk (almost half a million households had their homes repossessed in the 1990s). Unfortunately, it is not really possible to offset this risk since nobody offers insurance against a fall in prices. The Global economic recession It seems to have been agreed that the financial crisis which formed the birth of the current global economic recession was formed in the millennia of 2000 as a result of several factors which influenced increased housing sales and increased mortgage lending. [Sakbani (2009), Turalay (2009), Sel (2009)] One of the main factors which influenced the financial crisis was the boom in the housing market which was the result of increased supply of housing which persuaded financial institutions to increase and extend mortgages at attractive rates which mortgages borrowers could not afford to pay back. At the time of increased mortgage lending, the mortgage lenders had liquid assets that where at a level never seen before and this encouraged them to invest their assets into higher earning assets. This boom gave mortgage lenders an opportunity to double their portfolio of mortgage lending in respect of the past 10 years and mortgages reached some 50 per cent of their total lending assets after 2001 (Sakbani, 2009). The second factor which influenced housing sales was the record low-interest rates which were put in place by major banks to attract would be house buyers into purchasing mortgages at very low interest rates and other influences was the deregulation of financial institutions, there was a attitude throughout the major central banks of self regulation and with the increased financial innovations, major banks tended to regulate themselves. The final major factor was the disappearance of inflation fear as banks began to grow and increase portfolios, their self confidence began also to grow and any fears which were previously held started to disappear and this therefore relaxed their customer vigilance (Sakbani, 2008). As the demand for housing rose in the last decade and a half, this reached a record high in all major countries including the UK and USA. In the USA in particular, housing units sold in 2005 reached a peak of 1,283,000 as compared to an average of 609,000 in 1995-2000. More than 6 million units were sold in the five years up to 2006 (US Economic Forecast, 2009). The affects of this, increased the wealth and amount of disposable income available to households which in turn, increased the growth of the US economy up to 2007. It is recognised however, that this increase in economies and housing sales would not have taken place if there was a reduction in the availability of cheap mortgages being made available in the USA and UK up to 2005 and the substantial increase of low interest rates (IMF, 2008). The major banks began to operate under reduced regulation and with the global financial markets know in full swing, this increased the housing boom in the UK as some mortgages contained grace periods of up to three years and minimal down payments where required and with the introduction of low-interest rates, only fuelled the housing boom. Furthermore, these mortgages that where being taken out by borrowers would have originally been considered as non-credit worthy or, at very least, borrowers who incurred debts beyond their capacity to pay back (Ronald, 2008). As the banks began to run these debts, they ensured that the higher the risk, the higher should be the lending rate which therefore gave rise to the subprime mortgage market; this is a market whose borrowers may have difficulty maintaining the repayment schedule. Proponents of subprime lending maintain that the practice extends credit to people who would otherwise not have access to the credit market. As Professor Rosen of Princeton University explained, The main thing that innovations in the mortgage market have done over the past 30 years is to let in the excluded: the young, the discriminated against, the people without a lot of money in the bank to use for a down payment.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? It has now been agreed that this would have only ended in one way, this being collapse of the housing market and financial institutions. As borrowers started to run out of finances to repay their mortgages and defaults began to increase, the rate of increase in housing prices started to fall and could not compete with the rate of debt which therefore meant that borrowers could not refinance their loans or sell their houses at large profits [(The) Economist (2008), Sakbani (2008), Elise (2008)]. One way this could have been prevented is that if banks had extended their mortgage loans under the old conditions of mortgage lending, they would have had to hold them on their books and eventually would have run out of funds. But starting in the late 1980s, financial innovations made it possible for mortgage lenders to unload their loans to pools, which can transform these personalised, non-negotiable obligations into derivative securities guaranteed by the mortgages (Sakbani, 2008). After the crisis erupted, the International Monetary Fund (IMF, 2008) estimated the size of these securities at more than $945 billion, while Goldman Sachs put them at more than $1.0 trillion. In September 2008, the IMF revised its estimate to $1.4 trillion ((The) Economist, 2008). On January 28, 2009 the IMF once more revised its estimate to $2.2 trillion. All these estimates therefore prove that, nobody had any idea of the amount of the non-performing assets. Sakbani (2008) tends to suggest that there were many culprits that where directly related to the financial crisis of 2008 which include: the greedy banks and other financial institutions with their irresponsible and uninformed behaviour, the equally greedy borrowers, the absence of regulations covering all the financial institutions involved and not just banks, the lacunae of vigilant supervision at both the states and federal levels, the non-regulated and non-transparent character of the financial innovations, the failure of the rating agencies to do their job and finally the loose monetary policy of the Greenspan era in the years 2001-2004. Mr Greenspan, testifying on October 23, 2008 before a Congressional Committee, admitted his error in believing that investment managers would exercise prudence in their operations and accepted that the regulatory system was loose and fundamentally obsolete. Since the beginning of the economic recession, there has been a high reduction in new housing starts after a reduced number of sales. Berkeley Homes for example, reported sales down by 50% in the summer of 2008, also with housebuildersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ shares falling to low levels, there is major financing problems which continue to suffer. Housing Developments Policy Turalay (2008) appears to suggest that at the beginning of the downturn, the position of the UK housing market did not appear to be that bad as it was expected that there would be a gradual slow down in housing sales and then a fairly rapid recovery process which would not adversely affect the economy, however, this did not prove to be the case and no-one could have predicted what actually happened. Although UK economist Andrew Oswald, famously declared in November 2002; à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“I think we are about to go through the great housing crash of 2003 to 2005. . . . I advise you to sell your house, and move into rented accommodation Panic will then set inà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?(Pickard, 2005, p. 9). When comparing the period of July-October 2007 with July-October 2008, evidence suggests that a fall in average sale prices of around 14 per cent (Land Registry, 2008). It has been noted by Pryce Sprigings (2008) that measuring price change is hampered by the fact that selling times have risen substantially and indices are therefore not comparing like with like à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" ideally one would like to compare, for example, the acerage price of houses that sold within a month on the market in 2007 with average prices of houses that sold within a month on the market in 2008. Evidence also suggests that transaction volumes have fallen dramatically from around 111,000 sales per month in England and Wales between July and October 2007 to 45,000 sales per month between July and October 2008, which is a fall of 60 per cent (Land Registry, 2008). Other data sources also reported this fall including Halifax, Nationwide, Land Registry and Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). Some locations are showing even greater falls, with city centre flat and apartment markets appearing to be particularly vulnerable. During Oswaldà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s prediction, real average house prices rose at one of the steepest rates recorded in modern times, by nearly a quarter in real terms, from  £140,593 in 2003 quarter 1, to  £173,412 in 2006 quarter 1, based on nationwide real mix adjusted house prices see Figure 1 below, and continued to rise for a further two years until quarter 4 of 2007. Figure 1 Real House Prices There appears to have been significant early interventions from the government and the Bank of England to keep both the housing market and the wider economy on course. Consecutive cuts to base rates, addition of  £50bn of liquidity into the finance markets by the Bank of England to alleviate the credit crunch, and  £2.7bn fiscal improvement to balance low-income households for the withdrawal of the 10p tax rate. It was expected that these would all combine to form an apparently positive reinforcement, however this would prove not to be the case as in March 2008, initial indications emerged of a somewhat more speedy slowdown in the housing sector was about to develop. The RICS housing market survey of that month specified that surveyor attitude with regard to house prices had weakened to the lowest point since the survey began in 1978 and the ratio of completed sales in the previous three months to the stock of unsold property on the market fell to 0.224, the lowest since September 1996 (RICS UK Economic Brief, 2008). With mortgage approvals falling by 44 per cent in the same year (2008), this resulted in a significant fall in housing demand which led to banks being unwilling to offer new loans on houses. Although there is no surprise that the housing market has took a downturn and because this has happened before, there are no unexpected events occurring, Pryce and Sprigings tend to suggest that the speed and severity of the decline has been unusual. They go on to express that this leads us to naturally question whether our policies, our regulatory frameworks, our collective approach to housing and cultural obsession with house prices, have in some way exacerbated this particular manifestation of that cycle by sustaining the upswing well beyond mean trend and perhaps resulting an unnecessarily sever and rapid downturn (Pryce and Sprigings, 2008). These questions however are not wholly of interest to housing professionals as links between residential property and the broader market as well recognised. An example of this is stated by Goodhart and Hofmann (2008, p.180), where they find; à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“a significant multidirectional link between house prices, monetary variables, and the macroeconomy with the effects of money and credit amplified when house prices are boomingà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. It is agreed by Maclennan and Pryce that housing impacts on the real economy via the construction, financial, estate agency and legal sector and through housing equity financed consumption, all of which are sensitive to housing market fluctuations, and all have become increasingly inter-linked across nations as a result of the globalisation of capital and labour (Maclennan and Pryce, 1996). It is also in agreement with numerous authors, Malpass in particular, that housing also impacts on welfare; not only through homelessness caused by repossessions (i.e. owner occupiers and renters affected by landlord default) at a time of crisis, but increasingly through equity release funding of education support (including accommodation) at the start of life and elderly care at the end. (Malpass, 2005). Another article which backs Malpassà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ suggestion is the announcement of the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) which has confirmed the closing of Local Authority New Build (LANB) as a national programme. This is a result of the Treasury announcing that it was cutting  £220 million from HCAà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s budget, this follows on from the cut to the May budget of  £230 million. The new builds where seen as a solution to ease the housing crisis of the UK since the recession and to add to Malpassà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ argument, Baroness Hanham stated in the House of Lords; à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“There will be casualties; I donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t have any doubt that there will be casualtiesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? Furthermore to this statement, Labours Lord McKenzie warned à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“It will force many to move or end up homeless and create ghettos of the poorà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. Unfortunately, the literature and policy debates on the nature and consequences of housing markets have evolved rather dichotomously. As Maclennan (2008, p. 424) observed; à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Many nations are now involved in two housing discussions, namely à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“homelessness and affordabilityà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? and à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"house price booms, bubbles and bustsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢. The first theme has largely been the domain of social policy ministries, lobbies and researchers (Carter and Polevychok, 2004).The second has absorbed the macroeconomic policy community, including central banks, finance ministries, financial institutions and some academic economists, who are concerned about à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“stabilityà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. Affordability and stability are often discussed as if they are unrelated, not just in the press, but also within policymaking circles.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? Researchers can now endeavour to bridge this gap in housing discussions. By using the analogy of sowing and reaping, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reapà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ (Galations 6:7, King James Version). It can be highlighted how scrupulous aspects of the existing recession should require policy makers and researchers to reflect on the failures of policy that have arisen as a result of the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“fragmented nature of housing thinking within modern governmentsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? (Maclennan, 2008). Pryce and Sprigings propose that the great correction that is currently underway is a consequence, not only of transcendent global forces, but also significantly of UK policy decisions on financial liberalisation and housing. And if we are reaping what we have sown in domestic policy, who are the winners and losers, and what are the implications for how we evaluate UK post-war policy? It has been made clear that such issues are underpinned by major policy, theoretical, and empirical questions that will most probably be debated at length in the future. What Pryce and Sprigings have done, is highlighted the issues and hope that highlighting these issues will offer some key pointers as to how the future debate should be structured and what might be done to ensure a more integrated approach to modernising UK housing policies. It is argued that successive governments i.e. Conservative Party and Labour Party have promoted homeownership since the end of the Second World War and its benefits it brings financially to the lease holder if they are the occupier as one of the White Papers show from 1953, which states; à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“One object of future housing policy will be to continue to promote, by all possible means, the building of new houses for owner occupation. Of all forms of saving this is one of the best. Of all forms of ownership this is one of the most satisfying to the individual and the most beneficial to the nationà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? (1953White Paper, Houses: The Next Step). Gradually homeownership became deeply embedded in the UK psyche as the tenure of aspiration (Ronald, 2008). However, people then become aware that homeownership may not be best suited for everyone and this is a point that is raised by Sprigings (2008) where he identified that by encouraging low-income households into homeownership, we are subjecting them to the worst of its costs and risks while the market may restrict for them the potential of its benefits. This idea was also backed up by Pickard (2005) where he stated that housing is believed to be a great long-term investment on average, but for the deprived areas, and for the poorest households, homeownership may simply not produce the promised benefits. Housing developments and the global recession can be seen as interlinked with certain groups of society and those in less secure jobs as people on low income will bear the biggest brunt of the recession as low income workers and people in less secure jobs are more than likely to face financial difficulties when it comes to mortgage repayments as they are likely to lose their jobs or see rising inflation and rising interest rates and therefore low income households are likely to leave homeownership at the worst point because they are facing the biggest impact of the recession and also when the market begins to resume to normality again, low-income households may find it harder to re-enter the housing market when house prices are low because there is a proven correlation between credit being made available and housing prices and low-income households may not be able to obtain credit when house prices are still low therefore not enabling them to enter the housing market when it seems mo st beneficial. The CML also back up this idea as figures for October 2008 show that, the value of loans has decreased to 83 per cent of the value of the property therefore, as it has been established that long term dividends on housing can be superior, low-income households will find it difficult to witness these dividends as they will be exiting the housing market when it begins to deteriorate and trying to enter the housing market when it is difficult to obtain credit. Pryce (2008) seems to perceive that the promotion of homeownership by successive UK governments and therefore the rapid increase of owner occupation may have inadvertently produced a money pump working in the opposite direction. Another theory which Pryce (2008) identifies is the fact that low-income and particularly ethnic groups are less likely to enjoy the benefits of inter-generational housing welfare transfer. Keister (2003) also backs up the second theory of Pryce (2008) by identifying that children from larger families accumulate less wealth than do those from smaller families and that siblings dilute parentsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ finite financial resources and non material resources. Sibship size also reduced that likelihood of receiving a trust account or an inheritance and decreases home and stock ownership. Buy-to-Let Mortgages Buy-to-Let mortgages where developed in 1995 and where designed as a new financial product in the UK which enabled individuals to purchase a mortgage on a property for the purpose of letting the property out to future tenants. The benefits from these mortgages can include a stable income from rental receipts, as well as an accumulation of wealth if house prices go up. However one of the main factors of risk with taking out a buy-to-let mortgage is leverage speculation where the landlord purchases a property expecting to sell the house at a later date for a higher price or that rental income will exceed the repayment amounts of the initial loan. Buy-to-Let mortgages have became extremely popular with apprentice investors as this type of mortgage attracts middle income people to start to develop into small-scale landlords as a means of investing for their retirement. The volume of these loans grew rapidly in value as shown in Figure 2. Figure 2 BTL loan Pryce (2008) expresses concern at the fact that 90 per cent of total BTL advances since 1999 have been taken out during periods of above-trend house prices, and  £74 billion of BTL mortgages, which is more than half of the total BTL advances since 1999, were issues at the very peak of the housing boom. This can be seen in Figure 3. Fig 3 It is therefore in agreement that, a significant proportion of BTL loans are at risk because there is consensus that the value of securities will fall below the outstanding mortgage debts. This consensus is backed-up by the fact that repossessions on BTL properties as a per cent of all BTL mortgages almost doubled in the space of 18 months from the second half of 2005 to the first half of 2007 before the first round of gloomy house price results were released in late 2007. Latest CML data also reinforces this claim as they show a large increase in BTL accounts over three months in arrears at the third quarter of 2008 having trebled in number in 12 months to around 18,000. (Pryce and Sprigings 2008). If home owners begin to default on their loans then the impact could be significant not only for lenders, but for particular sectors of the housing market as 80 per cent of BTL properties are terraced of flats and these account for almost a third of the entire UK private rented stock (Sprigings, 2008). One of the key features of the BTL which there is much agreement on is the impact it seems to have had on new housing supply with flats coming to dominate supply, particularly in city markets. (Taylor 2008, Sprigings 2008). Fig 4 Effects of the Recession on the Housing Market Effects of the Recession on the Housing Market Introduction This part of the dissertation seeks to understand and investigate the cause of the current global recession and how it has affected the housing market in the UK. Housing Market Trends After the housing markets spectacular collapse in the 1990s, the UK housing market staged a significant revival. According to the HBOS index, the average house price stood at about  £163,000 in 2005, approximately double the  £82,000 it would have been worth in 2000. Cameron (2005) suggests that house prices surpassed their 1989 peak, relative to average household incomes. The other traditional measure of affordability, the ratio of interest payments to income, is not so overstretched, but only if capital repayments and unsecured debt are ignored. In addition, the strength of the housing market reflects the exceptional economic performance of the economy in 2005, which in turn is partially due to the sensible independent monetary policies pursued by the Bank of England Cameron (2005). As a result, it is suggested that Britain dealt with the world economic slowdown of 2001-2003 a great deal better than the majority of chief economies, producing six per cent growth. This vigorous expansion cannot completely describe the strength of the house price boom. Consequently, numerous economists have argued that there is a bubble in the British housing market, in common with a number of other countries, such as Spain, Australia, Canada, Sweden, and parts of the USA. FIGURE 1 Figure 1 shows the ratio of average house prices to average earnings, a key measure of affordability, for Great Britain and three major regions up to 2004 which is before the economic recession struck. As is visible, there is a positive contrast of cyclical behaviour in each series, with a surprising rise since 1999. According to the HBOS index, prices rose by only 1.3% over the nine months from July 2004 to April 2005. One of the main causes of this poor rise was due to the fact that many households were affected by the increases of the Bank of England base rate. Moreover, the increasing lack of demand within first time buyers, together with decreased numbers of house sales and low request rates for mortgages, implies that house prices have become separated from their underpinnings. The Nature of the Housing Market Housing markets are unusual for a number of reasons Housing markets are peculiar for a number of reasons. First, houses take time to build, so when demand rises, supply can only respond with a considerable lag. Indeed, to all intents, the short-run supply of housing is fixed. Second, houses are an asset that pays an implicit income (that is, the amount of rent that the owner saves by owning a house), so the value of the house should reflect expectations about future rents. But more importantly, since house-ownership in the UK is so widespread, a house is most householdsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ most important asset and since prices can go down as well as up, households are thereby exposed to a considerable amount of risk (almost half a million households had their homes repossessed in the 1990s). Unfortunately, it is not really possible to offset this risk since nobody offers insurance against a fall in prices. The Global economic recession It seems to have been agreed that the financial crisis which formed the birth of the current global economic recession was formed in the millennia of 2000 as a result of several factors which influenced increased housing sales and increased mortgage lending. [Sakbani (2009), Turalay (2009), Sel (2009)] One of the main factors which influenced the financial crisis was the boom in the housing market which was the result of increased supply of housing which persuaded financial institutions to increase and extend mortgages at attractive rates which mortgages borrowers could not afford to pay back. At the time of increased mortgage lending, the mortgage lenders had liquid assets that where at a level never seen before and this encouraged them to invest their assets into higher earning assets. This boom gave mortgage lenders an opportunity to double their portfolio of mortgage lending in respect of the past 10 years and mortgages reached some 50 per cent of their total lending assets after 2001 (Sakbani, 2009). The second factor which influenced housing sales was the record low-interest rates which were put in place by major banks to attract would be house buyers into purchasing mortgages at very low interest rates and other influences was the deregulation of financial institutions, there was a attitude throughout the major central banks of self regulation and with the increased financial innovations, major banks tended to regulate themselves. The final major factor was the disappearance of inflation fear as banks began to grow and increase portfolios, their self confidence began also to grow and any fears which were previously held started to disappear and this therefore relaxed their customer vigilance (Sakbani, 2008). As the demand for housing rose in the last decade and a half, this reached a record high in all major countries including the UK and USA. In the USA in particular, housing units sold in 2005 reached a peak of 1,283,000 as compared to an average of 609,000 in 1995-2000. More than 6 million units were sold in the five years up to 2006 (US Economic Forecast, 2009). The affects of this, increased the wealth and amount of disposable income available to households which in turn, increased the growth of the US economy up to 2007. It is recognised however, that this increase in economies and housing sales would not have taken place if there was a reduction in the availability of cheap mortgages being made available in the USA and UK up to 2005 and the substantial increase of low interest rates (IMF, 2008). The major banks began to operate under reduced regulation and with the global financial markets know in full swing, this increased the housing boom in the UK as some mortgages contained grace periods of up to three years and minimal down payments where required and with the introduction of low-interest rates, only fuelled the housing boom. Furthermore, these mortgages that where being taken out by borrowers would have originally been considered as non-credit worthy or, at very least, borrowers who incurred debts beyond their capacity to pay back (Ronald, 2008). As the banks began to run these debts, they ensured that the higher the risk, the higher should be the lending rate which therefore gave rise to the subprime mortgage market; this is a market whose borrowers may have difficulty maintaining the repayment schedule. Proponents of subprime lending maintain that the practice extends credit to people who would otherwise not have access to the credit market. As Professor Rosen of Princeton University explained, The main thing that innovations in the mortgage market have done over the past 30 years is to let in the excluded: the young, the discriminated against, the people without a lot of money in the bank to use for a down payment.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? It has now been agreed that this would have only ended in one way, this being collapse of the housing market and financial institutions. As borrowers started to run out of finances to repay their mortgages and defaults began to increase, the rate of increase in housing prices started to fall and could not compete with the rate of debt which therefore meant that borrowers could not refinance their loans or sell their houses at large profits [(The) Economist (2008), Sakbani (2008), Elise (2008)]. One way this could have been prevented is that if banks had extended their mortgage loans under the old conditions of mortgage lending, they would have had to hold them on their books and eventually would have run out of funds. But starting in the late 1980s, financial innovations made it possible for mortgage lenders to unload their loans to pools, which can transform these personalised, non-negotiable obligations into derivative securities guaranteed by the mortgages (Sakbani, 2008). After the crisis erupted, the International Monetary Fund (IMF, 2008) estimated the size of these securities at more than $945 billion, while Goldman Sachs put them at more than $1.0 trillion. In September 2008, the IMF revised its estimate to $1.4 trillion ((The) Economist, 2008). On January 28, 2009 the IMF once more revised its estimate to $2.2 trillion. All these estimates therefore prove that, nobody had any idea of the amount of the non-performing assets. Sakbani (2008) tends to suggest that there were many culprits that where directly related to the financial crisis of 2008 which include: the greedy banks and other financial institutions with their irresponsible and uninformed behaviour, the equally greedy borrowers, the absence of regulations covering all the financial institutions involved and not just banks, the lacunae of vigilant supervision at both the states and federal levels, the non-regulated and non-transparent character of the financial innovations, the failure of the rating agencies to do their job and finally the loose monetary policy of the Greenspan era in the years 2001-2004. Mr Greenspan, testifying on October 23, 2008 before a Congressional Committee, admitted his error in believing that investment managers would exercise prudence in their operations and accepted that the regulatory system was loose and fundamentally obsolete. Since the beginning of the economic recession, there has been a high reduction in new housing starts after a reduced number of sales. Berkeley Homes for example, reported sales down by 50% in the summer of 2008, also with housebuildersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ shares falling to low levels, there is major financing problems which continue to suffer. Housing Developments Policy Turalay (2008) appears to suggest that at the beginning of the downturn, the position of the UK housing market did not appear to be that bad as it was expected that there would be a gradual slow down in housing sales and then a fairly rapid recovery process which would not adversely affect the economy, however, this did not prove to be the case and no-one could have predicted what actually happened. Although UK economist Andrew Oswald, famously declared in November 2002; à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“I think we are about to go through the great housing crash of 2003 to 2005. . . . I advise you to sell your house, and move into rented accommodation Panic will then set inà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?(Pickard, 2005, p. 9). When comparing the period of July-October 2007 with July-October 2008, evidence suggests that a fall in average sale prices of around 14 per cent (Land Registry, 2008). It has been noted by Pryce Sprigings (2008) that measuring price change is hampered by the fact that selling times have risen substantially and indices are therefore not comparing like with like à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" ideally one would like to compare, for example, the acerage price of houses that sold within a month on the market in 2007 with average prices of houses that sold within a month on the market in 2008. Evidence also suggests that transaction volumes have fallen dramatically from around 111,000 sales per month in England and Wales between July and October 2007 to 45,000 sales per month between July and October 2008, which is a fall of 60 per cent (Land Registry, 2008). Other data sources also reported this fall including Halifax, Nationwide, Land Registry and Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). Some locations are showing even greater falls, with city centre flat and apartment markets appearing to be particularly vulnerable. During Oswaldà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s prediction, real average house prices rose at one of the steepest rates recorded in modern times, by nearly a quarter in real terms, from  £140,593 in 2003 quarter 1, to  £173,412 in 2006 quarter 1, based on nationwide real mix adjusted house prices see Figure 1 below, and continued to rise for a further two years until quarter 4 of 2007. Figure 1 Real House Prices There appears to have been significant early interventions from the government and the Bank of England to keep both the housing market and the wider economy on course. Consecutive cuts to base rates, addition of  £50bn of liquidity into the finance markets by the Bank of England to alleviate the credit crunch, and  £2.7bn fiscal improvement to balance low-income households for the withdrawal of the 10p tax rate. It was expected that these would all combine to form an apparently positive reinforcement, however this would prove not to be the case as in March 2008, initial indications emerged of a somewhat more speedy slowdown in the housing sector was about to develop. The RICS housing market survey of that month specified that surveyor attitude with regard to house prices had weakened to the lowest point since the survey began in 1978 and the ratio of completed sales in the previous three months to the stock of unsold property on the market fell to 0.224, the lowest since September 1996 (RICS UK Economic Brief, 2008). With mortgage approvals falling by 44 per cent in the same year (2008), this resulted in a significant fall in housing demand which led to banks being unwilling to offer new loans on houses. Although there is no surprise that the housing market has took a downturn and because this has happened before, there are no unexpected events occurring, Pryce and Sprigings tend to suggest that the speed and severity of the decline has been unusual. They go on to express that this leads us to naturally question whether our policies, our regulatory frameworks, our collective approach to housing and cultural obsession with house prices, have in some way exacerbated this particular manifestation of that cycle by sustaining the upswing well beyond mean trend and perhaps resulting an unnecessarily sever and rapid downturn (Pryce and Sprigings, 2008). These questions however are not wholly of interest to housing professionals as links between residential property and the broader market as well recognised. An example of this is stated by Goodhart and Hofmann (2008, p.180), where they find; à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“a significant multidirectional link between house prices, monetary variables, and the macroeconomy with the effects of money and credit amplified when house prices are boomingà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. It is agreed by Maclennan and Pryce that housing impacts on the real economy via the construction, financial, estate agency and legal sector and through housing equity financed consumption, all of which are sensitive to housing market fluctuations, and all have become increasingly inter-linked across nations as a result of the globalisation of capital and labour (Maclennan and Pryce, 1996). It is also in agreement with numerous authors, Malpass in particular, that housing also impacts on welfare; not only through homelessness caused by repossessions (i.e. owner occupiers and renters affected by landlord default) at a time of crisis, but increasingly through equity release funding of education support (including accommodation) at the start of life and elderly care at the end. (Malpass, 2005). Another article which backs Malpassà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ suggestion is the announcement of the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) which has confirmed the closing of Local Authority New Build (LANB) as a national programme. This is a result of the Treasury announcing that it was cutting  £220 million from HCAà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s budget, this follows on from the cut to the May budget of  £230 million. The new builds where seen as a solution to ease the housing crisis of the UK since the recession and to add to Malpassà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ argument, Baroness Hanham stated in the House of Lords; à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“There will be casualties; I donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t have any doubt that there will be casualtiesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? Furthermore to this statement, Labours Lord McKenzie warned à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“It will force many to move or end up homeless and create ghettos of the poorà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. Unfortunately, the literature and policy debates on the nature and consequences of housing markets have evolved rather dichotomously. As Maclennan (2008, p. 424) observed; à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Many nations are now involved in two housing discussions, namely à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“homelessness and affordabilityà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? and à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"house price booms, bubbles and bustsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢. The first theme has largely been the domain of social policy ministries, lobbies and researchers (Carter and Polevychok, 2004).The second has absorbed the macroeconomic policy community, including central banks, finance ministries, financial institutions and some academic economists, who are concerned about à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“stabilityà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. Affordability and stability are often discussed as if they are unrelated, not just in the press, but also within policymaking circles.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? Researchers can now endeavour to bridge this gap in housing discussions. By using the analogy of sowing and reaping, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reapà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ (Galations 6:7, King James Version). It can be highlighted how scrupulous aspects of the existing recession should require policy makers and researchers to reflect on the failures of policy that have arisen as a result of the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“fragmented nature of housing thinking within modern governmentsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? (Maclennan, 2008). Pryce and Sprigings propose that the great correction that is currently underway is a consequence, not only of transcendent global forces, but also significantly of UK policy decisions on financial liberalisation and housing. And if we are reaping what we have sown in domestic policy, who are the winners and losers, and what are the implications for how we evaluate UK post-war policy? It has been made clear that such issues are underpinned by major policy, theoretical, and empirical questions that will most probably be debated at length in the future. What Pryce and Sprigings have done, is highlighted the issues and hope that highlighting these issues will offer some key pointers as to how the future debate should be structured and what might be done to ensure a more integrated approach to modernising UK housing policies. It is argued that successive governments i.e. Conservative Party and Labour Party have promoted homeownership since the end of the Second World War and its benefits it brings financially to the lease holder if they are the occupier as one of the White Papers show from 1953, which states; à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“One object of future housing policy will be to continue to promote, by all possible means, the building of new houses for owner occupation. Of all forms of saving this is one of the best. Of all forms of ownership this is one of the most satisfying to the individual and the most beneficial to the nationà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? (1953White Paper, Houses: The Next Step). Gradually homeownership became deeply embedded in the UK psyche as the tenure of aspiration (Ronald, 2008). However, people then become aware that homeownership may not be best suited for everyone and this is a point that is raised by Sprigings (2008) where he identified that by encouraging low-income households into homeownership, we are subjecting them to the worst of its costs and risks while the market may restrict for them the potential of its benefits. This idea was also backed up by Pickard (2005) where he stated that housing is believed to be a great long-term investment on average, but for the deprived areas, and for the poorest households, homeownership may simply not produce the promised benefits. Housing developments and the global recession can be seen as interlinked with certain groups of society and those in less secure jobs as people on low income will bear the biggest brunt of the recession as low income workers and people in less secure jobs are more than likely to face financial difficulties when it comes to mortgage repayments as they are likely to lose their jobs or see rising inflation and rising interest rates and therefore low income households are likely to leave homeownership at the worst point because they are facing the biggest impact of the recession and also when the market begins to resume to normality again, low-income households may find it harder to re-enter the housing market when house prices are low because there is a proven correlation between credit being made available and housing prices and low-income households may not be able to obtain credit when house prices are still low therefore not enabling them to enter the housing market when it seems mo st beneficial. The CML also back up this idea as figures for October 2008 show that, the value of loans has decreased to 83 per cent of the value of the property therefore, as it has been established that long term dividends on housing can be superior, low-income households will find it difficult to witness these dividends as they will be exiting the housing market when it begins to deteriorate and trying to enter the housing market when it is difficult to obtain credit. Pryce (2008) seems to perceive that the promotion of homeownership by successive UK governments and therefore the rapid increase of owner occupation may have inadvertently produced a money pump working in the opposite direction. Another theory which Pryce (2008) identifies is the fact that low-income and particularly ethnic groups are less likely to enjoy the benefits of inter-generational housing welfare transfer. Keister (2003) also backs up the second theory of Pryce (2008) by identifying that children from larger families accumulate less wealth than do those from smaller families and that siblings dilute parentsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ finite financial resources and non material resources. Sibship size also reduced that likelihood of receiving a trust account or an inheritance and decreases home and stock ownership. Buy-to-Let Mortgages Buy-to-Let mortgages where developed in 1995 and where designed as a new financial product in the UK which enabled individuals to purchase a mortgage on a property for the purpose of letting the property out to future tenants. The benefits from these mortgages can include a stable income from rental receipts, as well as an accumulation of wealth if house prices go up. However one of the main factors of risk with taking out a buy-to-let mortgage is leverage speculation where the landlord purchases a property expecting to sell the house at a later date for a higher price or that rental income will exceed the repayment amounts of the initial loan. Buy-to-Let mortgages have became extremely popular with apprentice investors as this type of mortgage attracts middle income people to start to develop into small-scale landlords as a means of investing for their retirement. The volume of these loans grew rapidly in value as shown in Figure 2. Figure 2 BTL loan Pryce (2008) expresses concern at the fact that 90 per cent of total BTL advances since 1999 have been taken out during periods of above-trend house prices, and  £74 billion of BTL mortgages, which is more than half of the total BTL advances since 1999, were issues at the very peak of the housing boom. This can be seen in Figure 3. Fig 3 It is therefore in agreement that, a significant proportion of BTL loans are at risk because there is consensus that the value of securities will fall below the outstanding mortgage debts. This consensus is backed-up by the fact that repossessions on BTL properties as a per cent of all BTL mortgages almost doubled in the space of 18 months from the second half of 2005 to the first half of 2007 before the first round of gloomy house price results were released in late 2007. Latest CML data also reinforces this claim as they show a large increase in BTL accounts over three months in arrears at the third quarter of 2008 having trebled in number in 12 months to around 18,000. (Pryce and Sprigings 2008). If home owners begin to default on their loans then the impact could be significant not only for lenders, but for particular sectors of the housing market as 80 per cent of BTL properties are terraced of flats and these account for almost a third of the entire UK private rented stock (Sprigings, 2008). One of the key features of the BTL which there is much agreement on is the impact it seems to have had on new housing supply with flats coming to dominate supply, particularly in city markets. (Taylor 2008, Sprigings 2008). Fig 4

Overview on Inflation Targeting as a Monetary Policy Strategy Essay

INTRODUCTION Since the 1990s, a large number of industrial countries and a growing number of emerging market and transition economies have adopted inflation targeting as their monetary policy strategy. During the implementation they face many challenges. However, there is no established pattern so countries must learn along the way from one another and more importantly from their own experience. This paper provides an overview on inflation targeting as a monetary policy strategy, necessary preconditions for its successful implementation, its advantages and disadvantages and issues and challenges that emerging market and transition economies face while defining and implementing this monetary policy strategy. Inflation targeting as a monetary policy strategy Macroeconomic policy of any country has several goals such as employment, economic stability, economic development and production growth. Those goals are achieved by appropriate fiscal and monetary policy led by â€Å"most important players in financial markets† , Central Banks. Healthy macroeconomic policy means healthy economy which can be achieved through one of three monetary strategies: monetary targeting, inflation targeting and implicit nominal anchor. Central banks are held highly accountable for the conduct of monetary policy and hitting the targets. In other words, those regimes appear to be highly transparent. Furthermore, what is common for these three strategies is that all three of them focus on price stability, which is, for most Central Banks of the world, the main goal of monetary policy. Not so long ago policy makers reintroduced the idea of targeting. They first introduced monetary targeting during the seventies and eighties, and later on in 1989 infla... ...//www2.gsb.columbia.edu/faculty/fmishkin/PDFpapers/w5893.pdf †¢ Mishkin, Frederic S. and Schmidt-Hebbel, K., 2006, â€Å" Does Inflation Targeting Make a Difference?† Central Bank of Chile Working Papers No. 404 available from http://www.bcentral.cl/estudios/documentos-trabajo/pdf/dtbc404.pdf †¢ Johnson, D., 2002, â€Å"The Effect of Inflation Targeting on the Behavior of Expected Inflation: Evidence from an 11 Country Panel,† Journal of Monetary Economics 49, pp.1521-1538; †¢ Gerlach, S., 1999, â€Å"Who targets inflation explicitly?† European Economic Review 43, pp.1257-1277; †¢ Lin, S. and Ye, H., 2009, â€Å"Does inflation targeting make a difference in developing countries?† Journal of Development Economies 89, pp.118-123; †¢ Cukierman, A., 1996, The Economics of Central Banking, in: H. Wolf (ed.) Contemporary Economic Issues: Macroeconomic and Finance, Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan.

Hamlet and Revenge :: William Shakespeare Hamlet Revenge Essays

Hamlet And Revenge Revenge has caused the downfall of many a person. Its consuming nature causes one to act recklessly through anger rather than reason. Revenge is an emotion easily rationalized; one turn deserves another. However, this is a very dangerous theory to live by. Throughout Hamlet, revenge is a dominant theme. Fortinbras, Laertes, and Hamlet all seek to avenge the deaths of their fathers. But in so doing, all three rely more on emotion than thought, and take a very big gamble, a gamble which eventually leads to the downfall and death of all but one of them. King Fortinbras was slain by King Hamlet in a sword battle. This entitled King Hamlet to the land that was possessed by Fortinbras because it was written in a seal'd compact. "†¦our valiant Hamlet-for so this side of our known world esteem'd him-did slay this Fortinbras." Young Fortinbras was enraged by his father’s murder and sought revenge against Denmark. He wanted to reclaim the land that had been lost to Denmark wh en his father was killed. "†¦Now sir, young Fortinbras†¦as it doth well appear unto our state-but to recover of us, by strong hand and terms compulsative, those foresaid lands so by his father lost†¦" Claudius becomes aware of Fortinbras’ plans, and in an evasive move, sends a message to the new King of Norway, Fortinbras’ uncle. The king forbade Fortinbras to wage an attack against Denmark, and instead suggested he attack the Poles to vent his anger. Fortinbras agreed to the plan, but had no intentions of following it. Polonius was King Hamlet’s advisor and the father of Ophelia and Laertes, both of whom respected and loved him, despite his arrogant demeanour. Young Hamlet murdered Polonius accidentally, thinking him to be the king eves dropping on a conversation between Hamlet and his mother. "How now! A rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!" Laertes returned home immediately after hearing of his father's death and confronted the King, accusing him of the murder of his father. Once Claudius told Laertes that Hamlet was responsible for his father's death, he and Claudius concoct a scheme to kill Hamlet using a poison tipped sword. "†¦Hamlet, thou art slain†¦The treacherous instrument is in thy, unbated and envenom'd†¦" Hamlet does indeed die as a result of wounds inflicted by Laertes, but it is the poisoned tipped sword that causes the demise of Laertes as well.