Professor Peter Kemp

Peter A. Kemp is a professor of public policy, Associate Director of the Blavatnik School of Government, and a member of the Oxford Institute of Social Policy.

Before moving to the Blavatnik School, Peter was the Barnett Professor of Social Policy and Head of the Department of Social Policy at Oxford. He received his DPhil from the University of Sussex in 1984 and held professorial chairs at the Universities of York and Glasgow before coming to Oxford in 2006.

Peter’s main area of research is housing and housing policy, particularly housing allowances and private rental housing. He has also undertaken research on homelessness and on welfare and work. His research includes historical and comparative perspectives as well as theory and policy analysis.

For many years, Peter has contributed to policy debates on housing allowance reform and private renting. He has been consulted by officials in Britain and overseas, and was special advisor to the House of Commons Select Committee’s Inquiry into the Local Housing Allowance (2009/10). He was a member of the Department for Work and Pensions’ Housing Benefit Reform Programme Board (2002 to 2006) and its Housing Benefit Strategy Committee (2006 to 2010).

Peter would be interested in supervising DPhil students wishing to work on the following broad topics:

·         Housing policy

·         Homelessness

·         Welfare reform

Selected recent publications

Private renting

Crook, T. & Kemp, P.A (2011) Transforming Private Landlords: housing, markets and public policy, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Kemp, P.A. (2011) ‘Low-income tenants in the private rental housing market’, Housing Studies, vol.26, no. 7 &8, pp 1019-1034.

Kemp, P.A. & Kofner, S. (2010) ‘Contrasting varieties of private renting: England and Germany’, International Journal of Housing Policy, vol. 10, no.4, pp 379-398.

Kemp, P.A. (2009) 'The transformation of private renting' in P. Malpass & R. Rowlands (eds) Housing, Markets and Policy, London: Routledge.

Kemp, P. A. (2004) Private Renting in Transition, Coventry: CIH Publications

Housing allowances

Griggs, J. & Kemp, P.A (2012) ‘Housing allowances as income support: comparing European welfare regimes’  International Journal of Housing Policy, vol. 12, no.4, pp 391-412.

P.A. Kemp (ed.) (2007) Housing Allowances in Comparative Perspective, Bristol: The Policy Press.

Irvine, A., Kemp, P.A. & Nice, K. (2007) Direct Payment of Housing Benefit: what do claimants think? Coventry: Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Chartered Institute of Housing.

Priemus, H., Kemp, P. A & Varady, D (2006) 'Housing vouchers in the United States, Great Britain and the Netherlands’, Housing Policy Debate, vol. 16, no. 3 & 4, pp 575-609.

Kemp, P.  (2006) ‘Housing benefit: Great Britain in comparative perspective’, Public Finance and Management, vol. 6, no. 1, pp 65-87.

Welfare and work

Kemp, P.A. and Davidson, J. (2010) 'Employability trajectories among new claimants of incapacity benefit', Policy Studies, vol. 31, no.2, pp203-221.

Kemp, P.A. & Davidson, J. (2009) ‘Gender differences among new claimants of incapacity benefit’, Journal of Social Policy, vol. 38, no.4, pp589-606.

Kemp, P.A. (2008) 'The transformation of incapacity benefits' in M. Seeleib-Kaiser (ed.) Welfare State Transformations: Comparative Perspectives, Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.

Kemp, P. A., Bakker-Tauritz, B & Sunden, A (eds) (2006) Sick Societies? Trends in Disability Benefits in Post-industrial Welfare States, Geneva: International Social Security Association.

Arksey, H. & Kemp, P.A. (2006) ‘Carers and employment in a work-focused welfare state’ in C. Glendinning & P.A. Kemp (eds) Cash and Care: Policy Challenges in the Welfare State, Bristol: Policy Press.