Models of the Housing Market

Abstract

Economic studies of the housing market have taken many forms. There have been those which concentrate on macro-behaviour through the formulation and econometric estimation of aggregate demand and supply relationships. Whitehead (1974) in her econometric study of the UK housing market provides a good example of this type of approach. Other studies have been more concerned with the operation of particular local markets. Through these, the micro aspects of housing market behaviour, especially its spatial dimension, tend to receive special attention. Ball and Kirwan’s study of the Bristol market (Ball and Kirwan, 1975) is representative of this approach. Still others have taken specific aspects of market behaviour as their focus of attention and examined them from either a purely theoretical, or from a theoretical and empirical point of view. Those which have looked at residential location (for example, Alonso, 1964; Muth, 1969; and Evans, 1973), the filtering process (Grigsby, 1963) and the determination of relative house prices (Wilkinson, 1971), all fall into this category.