Competition and Social Rented Housing

This paper aims to make a contribution to the debate about the meaning of competition as applied to social housing and the usefulness of a competitive paradigm as a comparative analytical tool. Social housing providers have been asked to become more competitive and more market orientated in Europe. But what exactly do these terms mean and what are the defining features of competitiveness? And how can concepts of competition be applied to social housing, given that social housing is not allocated by price and market demand? Starting in mainstream economic analysis the meaning of competition and governments' roles in relation to competition are examined. The paper then applies key features of competition to social housing in order to explore the meaning of competition within social housing and between social housing and market housing. It then considers competition as a framework for examining the performance of social housing systems and the relationships between social and market rental housing. The possible implications of (more) competition within social housing and between social housing and market housing are discussed. Finally, the paper suggests that the competitive paradigm can be useful in comparative analysis because it can potentially supply a graded taxonomy that identifies and compares degrees of competitiveness.