Behavioural Insights and Nudges Can Help Mitigate the Housing Problem: A Report by Vivaços and Future Policy Lab and a New CBEH Working Paper

The Barcelona Chair of Housing Studies has participated through one of its co-directors in the “Pilot Projects in Rural Housing” report, promoted by Vivaces and Future Policy Lab. This report includes three quasi-experimental pilots with different contents and approaches, aimed at reducing vacant housing in one of Spain’s areas at severe risk of depopulation: the Sorian district of Terres del Cid. The report was co-financed by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) and was presented and published on December 17, 2024.

Specifically, this participation materialized in the third experiment, which proposes acting on cognitive biases by directing communications to owners of vacant homes. The experiment tests different communication models and specifically recommends one, designed with the help of behavioural insights. This recommended model includes a framing nudge that uses behavioural sciences to target individual cognitive biases, specifically loss aversion and social comparison.

Precisely these themes—the effect of vacant housing in urban and rural environments (with considerations for security and the right to the city and an adequate urban environment), the analysis of behavioural insights in general and in the field of urban planning and housing in particular, and the inclusion of this proposed experiment from the report—are the issues addressed in the new Working Paper included in this website’s section. It is titled “Behavioural Insights and Housing: Designing a Nudge to Mobilize Vacant Housing Based on Existing European Precedents” and is open access. Furthermore, the executive summary in English and a link to the aforementioned report are also included.