A Cellular Automata Simulation of the 1990s Russian Housing Privatization Decision

The study uses a computational approach to study the phenomenon of housing privatization in Russia in the 1990s. As part of the housing reform flats in multi-family buildings were offered to their residents free of payment. Nevertheless rapid mass housing privatization did not take place. While this outcome admits a number of explanations this analysis emphasizes the fact that the environment in which the decision-making households were operating had a high degree of uncertainty and imposed a high information-processing requirement on the decision-makers. Using the bounded rationality paradigm, the study builds a case for a cellular automata simulation of household decision-making in the context of housing privatization reforms in Russia in the 1990s. Cellular automata is then used to simulate a household’s decision to become the owner of its dwelling.