You would think that the residential property bubble and subsequent crisis of the past decade would make people leery of widespread home ownership, and governments reluctant to pump it up. Yet, here we are again.

Despite the continuing fiscal tightening, the UK coalition government is pressing on with its “Help to Buy” scheme and the US Congress continues its unquestioning protection of the home mortgage interest tax deduction. This is the economic policy equivalent of incurring the individual and social costs of an obesity epidemic while still subsidising maize and beef production – but maybe more fixable.

Things do not have to be this way in the Anglo-American economies. Policies to increase home ownership do not necessarily improve the supply or distribution of housing, as the UK experience demonstrates, and often works against it. The OECD’s Better Life Index shows that no relationship exists between a country’s home-ownership levels and its average housing satisfaction and quality. And there is no iron law that higher-income economies must have higher rates of home ownership: Mexico, Nepal and Russia all have home-ownership rates of more than 80 per cent, while the French, German and Japanese rates are 30-40 percentage points lower. The US and the UK rates sit between them at about 65 to 70 per cent.