Can’t Buy Me Home: Beliefs, Facts, and Policy in the Housing Affordability Crisis

Alda Botelho Azevedo, Inês Gonçalves and João Pereira dos Santos ()
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Alda Botelho Azevedo: Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Inês Gonçalves: Universidade Nova de Lisboa
João Pereira dos Santos: ISEG

No 18073, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Our study investigates public opinion on the housing affordability crisis in Portugal through a nationally representative survey combined with an information provision experiment. Participants were asked to identify perceived causes of rising housing prices, assess their factual knowledge of the housing market and sociodemographic trends, and indicate their preferred policy solutions, carefully framed to reflect trade-offs. Half of the respondents were randomly assigned to receive official statistical information on these trends before indicating their policy preferences. The findings reveal significant heterogeneity in beliefs about the causes of the crisis, pervasive misperceptions regarding market trends, and a limited impact of information provision on policy preferences. These results underscore the challenges of addressing housing policy through informational interventions alone and highlight the need for strategies that integrate behavioral and contextual factors to foster informed public engagement.

Keywords: information provision experiment; housing; Portugal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F60 H1 R31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm and nep-exp
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