Bryan Kavanagh

Overview

Bryan Kavanagh is a Melbourne-based real estate valuer and a long-time figure in Australia's Georgist research scene, associated with the Land Values Research Group (LVRG), a Melbourne body founded in 1943 that studies the influence of land prices on broader economic activity.[2] Starting in the early 1990s, Kavanagh began compiling the total annual value of Australian property sales back to 1972, and in 2001 first published a measure — the ratio of property sales to GDP — that he used as a "barometer" of the economy: a sharp year-on-year fall in the ratio has historically preceded recessions, including those of 1975, 1982-83, and 1990-91.[2] After statistician Gavin Putland proposed refinements, the measure became known as the Kavanagh-Putland Index; by 2011 the two were using it to warn publicly of an "imminent recession."[2]

Fred Harrison's Ricardo's Law (2006) credits Kavanagh, as LVRG director, with using this Economic Barometer to quantify the scale of Australia's property-cycle losses — an estimated A$768 billion of foregone GDP — alongside economist Terence Dwyer's parallel estimates of Australia's land and resource rents.[1] Kavanagh has also written essays for the Georgist journal Progress, where he is described simply as "a real estate valuer in Melbourne."[3]

See Also

• The 18-Year Land Cycle — the underlying periodicity Kavanagh's barometer tracks
• Ricardo's Law (book) — the discovery source documenting Kavanagh's Economic Barometer
• The Taxable Capacity of Australian Land and Resources (Dwyer) — the companion Australian revenue-capacity estimate cited alongside Kavanagh's work
• Prosper Australia — the Melbourne Georgist organisation in whose orbit Kavanagh's research sits
• Fred Harrison — the author whose book carries Kavanagh's figures

Sources

1. Fred Harrison, Ricardo's Law: House Prices and the Great Tax Clawback Scam (Shepheard-Walwyn, 2006), Ch. 15.3, Box 15:5 — used for Kavanagh's role as Land Values Research Group director, the Economic Barometer, and the A$768bn property-cycle GDP-loss estimate. Book page
2. Prosper Australia, "Imminent recession forecast by Kavanagh-Putland Index" (press release, 26 October 2011) — used for the twenty-years-of-data/ten-years-published timeline, the property-sales-to-GDP definition of the index, the 1943 founding date of the Land Values Research Group, and the historical recession precedents (1975, 1982-83, 1990-91). prosper.org.au
3. Progress.org, "Bryan Kavanagh" (contributor page) — used to confirm his profession as a Melbourne real estate valuer and his continuing essay contributions to the Georgist journal Progress. progress.org