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This paper examines the social construction of house size expectations in two national panel datasets: German Socio Economic Panel Study (GSOEP) and the British Household Panel Study (BHPS). More specifically, it tests the aspiration spiral theory and positional good theory using data on housing/life satisfaction and house size judgements. In both countries, it finds substantial evidence that the current space expectations of individuals who have 'upsized' depends on the level of living space they experienced in the past year. For downsizers, however, the evidence in support of the aspiration spiral theory is weaker. In terms of the positional good theory, this paper finds no consistent evidence that an individual's space expectations are influenced by those around them. In both countries, the paper tests for two reference groups – the average level of living space in the region, and the mean size of the largest decile of houses in the region – and neither are found to be significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic theory about supply and demand suggests that if consumer demand for a product increases then producers respond by increasing supply. In the UK housing market there is emerging evidence of consumer demand for low energy housing, yet little has been built to date by private sector housebuilders: existing low energy housing is largely within the social housing and self-build sectors. Ideas from science and technology studies (STS) are introduced to help further understanding of why the housing market might be slow to respond to changing consumer preferences. Although standard economic concepts concerning costs and price are able in part to explain the situation, greater attention to socio-technical issues highlights some of the reasons why innovation and change are difficult to effect. The housing market is best viewed as a socio-technical system, whereby the social and the technical are interlinked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]