Collective decision-making in private multi-apartment buildings: Evidence from a discrete choice experiment

Jan Frankowski, Jakub Sokołowski, Soňa Stará, Joanna Mazurkiewicz, Aleksandra Prusak and Richard Jedon
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Jakub Sokolowski

No 02/2026, IBS Working Papers from Instytut Badan Strukturalnych

Abstract: This study examines how residents evaluate trade-offs between benefit scale, required engagement, and investment decision-making rules in Poland and Czechia: countries with distinct post-socialist housing trajectories. Using a large-scale discrete choice experiment with over 7,500 respondents, we analyze the relative importance of decision-making arrangements and heterogeneity in preferences across socio-demographic groups. Findings show that residents strongly prefer building-wide benefits and majority-based decision-making. Preferences show strong cross-national consistency, suggesting structural rather than context-specific patterns. Results also reveal a preference-behavior gap, interpreted through Campbell’s paradigm: although residents value direct, democratic decision-making, board-based governance, such as in housing cooperatives, may nevertheless persist because participation costs outweigh residents’ preferences for active involvement.

Keywords: collective decision-making; housing ownership; housing cooperatives; homeowners’ associations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D71 P31 R21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2026-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ibt:wpaper:wp022026

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