This paper sets out to examine why the modern housebuilding industry is organised in the ways it is and to identify some implications for the wider operation of housing markets. It concentrates on advanced economies and the impacts of market conditions, regulatory constraints, production characteristics, institutional structures and land supply. Widespread differences occur across countries in the ways in which housebuilding is institutionally structured. It is argued that these differences are generally explicable in economic terms and that regulatory practices determine much of the variation.
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