ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the broad aims of the research and discusses some of the underlying themes. In particular, it argues how hedonic house price theory has reformulated the micro-economic theories of location and landuse of the 1960s and 1970s to take into account the vagaries of the housing market. Specifically, the concept of submarkets has now become a central tenant of the economics of housing markets. Therefore, it can be concluded that in some respects, hedonic house price theory has better conceptualised housing market dynamics than conventional micro-economic theory. Locational externalities are becoming an increasingly significant component of local housing market economies, particularly as gentrification and urban regeneration continue to change the urban landscape. Hedonic pricing is an econometric technique used for estimating the monetary value of attributes of complex commodities. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book.
