Deregulation, markets and the 1988 Housing Act

ABSTRACT This paper looks at the deregulation of private sector rents. It examines two recent articles on this topic published in Social Policy and Administration, which take very different positions on the need for and desirability of rent deregulation, one very pro‐market the other very anti‐market in outlook. It is argued here that both articles hold idealized views of ‘the market’, though for different reasons, and that a less partisan view of the arguments and the evidence would suggest that deregulation of relettings, as provided by the Housing Act 1988, will be neither so significantly beneficial nor so deleterious in its effects as these two articles respectively would suggest.