Residential choice in a time-space perspective: A micro-simulation aproach

Abstract

Housing policy in Sweden is currently subject to major change. The implications of policy shifts can be analyzed in various ways, one of which is micro simulation. This paper analyzes individuals' behavior on the housing market. In this perspective, individuals are considered as actors, in their capacities as household members and housing consumers. At the same time, this perspective views individuals as they make life choices. Accordingly, the individual is seen as being influenced by actions and events that are directly conditioned by biological processes such as birth, aging and death. In our model, the interplay between changes in households and changes in available dwellings on a differentiated housing market is seen as a dynamic and interdependent process. The model of this process delineates both the interaction between individuals in the households and the interplay and competition for housing between all households on the housing market. In analyzing housing markets, issues like interdependences and heterogeneity are vital. The micro-simulation approach can handle interdependencies between individuals from different households while considering the household as an entity. The micro-simulation model presented here addresses two issues: the dynamics of individuals forming and dissolving households; and the interdependence between changes in the composition of unoccupied dwellings and changes in the households. Section two defines the concepts used in this housing-market model and reveals how the main parts of the model are linked. Section Three describes how the model works in more detail. Sections Four and Five presents data and some results of an experiment that we conducted for a Swedish municipality.