Housing demand in Germany and Japan

National housing markets differ in many aspects, making cross-national studies a fascinating subject. This article sheds light on housing demand in Germany and Japan. The primary task undertaken is to separate crossnational differences in the structure of housing demand by differing preferences and differing socioeconomic characteristics, exploiting the available crosscountry variation in survey data from both countries. This study features the application of a mixed logit model that allows for a flexible substitution pattern among unobservable characteristics. This is an important feature in a comparison between countries since so many cultural and policy differences are impossible to model precisely. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science.