The Industrial Organization of Housing Markets

The markets for the sale and rental of housing are two of the largest and most visible markets in the US economy. Housing has distinct features as a consumption good: its extreme durability and high transaction costs make location decisions highly persistent, meaning that even short-term frictions or interventions can have outsized, long-lasting effects on welfare. Supply is highly regulated by multiple levels of government. Nevertheless, housing markets exhibit many of the fundamental economic forces that industrial organization (IO) tools were designed to analyze, including market power, platform competition, and price setting under regulation. This suggests that IO frameworks, appropriately adapted to account for housing's unique characteristics, can provide valuable insights into these markets.

To advance research on the industrial organization of housing markets, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) will convene a research conference on Friday December 12, 2025 in Stanford, CA. The meeting will be organized by Sophie Calder-Wang (University of Pennsylvania), Rebecca Diamond (Stanford University), Shosh Vasserman (Stanford University), and Winnie van Dijk (Yale University).

The organizers will consider any research that applies insights and tools from industrial organization to housing markets. Topics of particular interest include, but are not limited to:

• The roles of new technology, platform competition, and market concentration in the market for real estate transactions
• Regulatory and contracting frictions, asymmetric information, and market power in rental markets
• The roles of market structure, information frictions, and correlated risks in pricing and availability of financial products related to housing markets, such as mortgages and homeowners’ insurance  
• Market forces that affect new construction and housing supply, such as frictions in the construction industry and municipal zoning regulations

The organizers welcome submissions of both empirical and theoretical research, including papers by scholars who are early in their careers and who are not NBER affiliates. Submissions must include brief disclosures summarizing any financial or other potential conflicts of interests of the authors. In keeping with NBER guidelines, papers may not make policy recommendations.

To be considered for presentation, upload papers by 11:59pm ET on Monday, August 25, 2025.

Please do not submit papers that have been accepted for publication and that will be published by December 2025. Authors chosen to present papers will be notified in early September. Questions about this conference may be addressed to confer@nber.org.