IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jnlbes/v29y2011i4p564-578.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Testing Cost Inefficiency Under Free Entry in the Real Estate Brokerage Industry

Author

Listed:
  • Lu Han
  • Seung-Hyun Hong

Abstract

This article provides an empirical framework for studying entry and cost inefficiency in the real estate brokerage industry. We present a structural entry model that exploits individual level data on entry and earnings to estimate potential real estate agents' revenues and reservation wages, thereby recovering costs of providing brokerage service. Using U.S. Census data, we estimate the model and find strong evidence for cost inefficiency under free entry, attributable in particular to wasteful nonprice competition. We further use the estimated model to evaluate welfare implications of the rebate bans that currently persist in some U.S. states. Supplemental materials are provided online.

Suggested Citation

  • Lu Han & Seung-Hyun Hong, 2011. "Testing Cost Inefficiency Under Free Entry in the Real Estate Brokerage Industry," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(4), pages 564-578, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jnlbes:v:29:y:2011:i:4:p:564-578
    DOI: 10.1198/jbes.2011.08314
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1198/jbes.2011.08314
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1198/jbes.2011.08314?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhaohui Li & Qiang Li & Hua Sun & Li Sun, 2022. "Diffused effort, asset heterogeneity, and real estate brokerage," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 50(3), pages 707-742, September.
    2. Gautier, Pieter & Siegmann, Arjen & van Vuuren, Aico, 2023. "Real-estate agent commission structure and sales performance," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 163-187.
    3. Victor Aguirregabiria & Mathieu Marcoux, 2021. "Imposing equilibrium restrictions in the estimation of dynamic discrete games," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(4), pages 1223-1271, November.
    4. Panle Jia Barwick & Parag A. Pathak & Maisy Wong, 2015. "Conflicts of Interest and the Realtor Commission Puzzle," NBER Working Papers 21489, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Victor Aguirregabiria & Allan Collard-Wexler & Stephen P. Ryan, 2021. "Dynamic Games in Empirical Industrial Organization," NBER Working Papers 29291, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Panle Jia & Parag A. Pathak, 2010. "The Impact of Commissions on Home Sales in Greater Boston," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 475-479, May.
    7. Sophia Gilbukh & Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, 2019. "Heterogeneous Real Estate Agents and the Housing Cycle," 2019 Meeting Papers 932, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Edward Kung, 2020. "Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Housing," NBER Chapters, in: The Role of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Economic Growth, pages 499-533, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Julius Stoll, 2023. "How not to Reduce Commission Rates of Real Estate Agents: Evidence From Germany," Berlin School of Economics Discussion Papers 0026, Berlin School of Economics.
    10. Geoffrey K. Turnbull & Bennie D. Waller & Scott A. Wentland, 2022. "Mitigating agency costs in the housing market," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 50(3), pages 829-861, September.
    11. Panle Jia Barwick & Parag A. Pathak, 2015. "The costs of free entry: an empirical study of real estate agents in Greater Boston," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 46(1), pages 103-145, March.
    12. Marcus T. Allen & William H. Dare & Lingxiao Li, 2018. "MLS Information Sharing Intensity and Housing Market Outcomes," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 297-313, August.
    13. Edward Kung, 2020. "Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Housing," NBER Working Papers 26886, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Nathan Yang, 2012. "Burger King and McDonald’s: Where’s the Spillover?," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2), pages 255-281, July.
    15. In Kyung Kim & Yoon-Jin Lee & Young-Ro Yoon, 2017. "Sequential Supply Decision and Market Efficiency: Theory and Evidence," Working Papers 1703, Nazarbayev University, Department of Economics, revised Mar 2017.
    16. Han, Lu & Strange, William C., 2015. "The Microstructure of Housing Markets," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 813-886, Elsevier.
    17. Panle Jia Barwick & Parag A. Pathak & Maisy Wong, 2017. "Conflicts of Interest and Steering in Residential Brokerage," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 191-222, July.
    18. Seung‐Hyun Hong, 2022. "Real estate agents' influence on housing search," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(3), pages 563-582, April.
    19. Nathan Yang, 2011. "An Empirical Model of Industry Dynamics with Common Uncertainty and Learning from the Actions of Competitors," Working Papers 11-16, NET Institute.
    20. Aguirregabiria, Victor, 2009. "Estimation of Dynamic Discrete Games Using the Nested Pseudo Likelihood Algorithm: Code and Application," MPRA Paper 17329, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:jnlbes:v:29:y:2011:i:4:p:564-578. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/UBES20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.