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Competing Notions of Search for Home: Behavioural Economics and Housing Markets

Abstract The frequent use of the unifying term “behavioural economics” in contemporary economic theories and English housing policies masks divergent accounts of human ability, search processes and housing markets. The resurgence in interest in the behaviours of housing markets brings exchange mechanisms and housing search processes into sharp focus; this paper provides and applies a framework to assess the compatibility of behavioural economics theories of housing search. Assessing the ontological commitments of theories is possible through analysis of their conceptualizations of human ability, the search process and the structure and operation of the market. This assessment reveals a spectrum of diversity; distinctions between “old” and “new” behavioural economics are evident despite there being only limited acknowledgement of this variation. Whilst significant contributions to housing economics have taken place across the spectrum, clear distinctions are needed to prevent policy-makers’ inadvertently misapplying incompatible approaches to behavioural economics and to prevent inappropriate synthesis in academic theorization.