Firm Productivity Differences From Factor Markets

We model firm adaptation to local factor markets in which firms care about both the price and availability of inputs. The model is estimated by combining firm and population census data, and quantifies the role of factor markets in input use, productivity and welfare. Considering China's diverse factor markets, we find that within an industry interquartile labor costs vary by 30–80%, leading to 3–12% interquartile differences in TFP. In general equilibrium, homogenization of labor markets would increase real income by 1.33%. Favorably endowed regions attract more economic activity, providing new insights into within‐country comparative advantage and specialization.     

Industrial Structure and Unemployment in Regional Labor Markets Industrial Structure and Unemployment

Even during periods of moderated national joblessness, certain regions face stubbornly high unemployment. "Rust Belt" areas are often particularly affected and raise the question of whether such labor markets may not clear even in equilibrium. This article examines evidence from a panel data set of West Virginia counties, along with case-study surveys. The combined findings help provide a better understanding of persistent local unemployment, which appears to be due to nonclearing labor markets.     

Office Rent Processes: The Case of U.S. Metropolitan Markets

This paper synthesizes elements of the traditional and contemporary theory of real estate markets to formulate an empirical framework for exploring metropolitan office rent processes. Such a framework is then applied to the analysis of office rents across 18 U.S. office markets during 1986–1995. The empirical results underscore the sluggishness of rental adjustments, highlight the extent of rental disequilibria across markets, and uncover the role of office employment factors (such as size, diversity, spatial organization, growth rates, and volatility), construction costs, interest rates, amenities, and zoning in shaping interarea differentials in the equilibrium component of office rents.     

Market Efficiency and Return Statistics: Evidence from Real Estate and Stock Markets Using a Present-Value Approach

This paper develops a methodology to identify asset price response to news in the framework of the Campbell–Shiller log-linear present-value equation. We further show that a slow price adjustment in real estate markets not only induces a high serial autocorrelation in excess returns, but also dampens the return volatility and the correlation with excess returns in other asset markets. Using Hong Kong real estate and stock market data, we find that the quarterly real estate price assimilates only about half the effect of market news, whereas the quarterly stock price incorporates the news fully. Our analysis identifies a cumulative price adjustment that recovers lost information in real estate returns due to market inefficiency and thereby restores the real estate return volatility and the correlation between real estate and stock markets.     

Equilibrium Real Options Exercise Strategies with Multiple Players: The Case of Real Estate Markets

This article derives a closed-form solution for an equilibrium real options exercise model with stochastic revenues and costs for monopoly, duopoly, oligopoly and competitive markets. Our model also allows one option holder to have a greater production capacity than others. Under a monopolistic environment we find that the optimal option exercise strategy in real estate markets is dramatically opposite to that in a financial (warrant) market, indicating the importance of paying attention to the institutional details of the underlying market when analyzing option exercise strategies. Our model can be generalized to the pricing of convertible securities and capital investment decisions involving both stochastic revenues and costs under different types of market structures.     

Switching Costs in Two‐Sided Markets

In many markets, there are switching costs and network effects. Yet the literature generally deals with them separately. This paper bridges the gap by analyzing their interaction (or ‘indirect bargain’) in a dynamic two‐sided market. It shows that in the symmetric equilibrium, the classic result that the first‐period price is U‐shaped in switching costs does not emerge, but instead switching costs always intensify the first‐period price competition. Moreover, an increase in switching costs on one side decreases the first‐period price on the other side. Policies that ignore these effects may overestimate the extent to which switching costs can reduce welfare.     

Concentration and Market Structure in Local Real Estate Markets

The competitiveness of the residential real estate brokerage industry has attracted much attention. Anecdotal evidence suggests some local markets are concentrated, yet no systematic market structure study has been conducted. We collected cross‐sectional data on real estate brokers in 90 diverse markets across the United States and collected longitudinal data for Louisville, Kentucky. In medium and large markets, no evidence exists that market concentration might create problems for competition. Small markets, on average, have higher Herfindahl‐Hirschman Indexes than medium and large markets. The longitudinal data reveal that many small brokers sell a house or two one year and none the next year.     

The Markets for Real Estate Assets and Space: A Conceptual Framework

In this study, we present a simple analytic framework that divides the real estate market into two markets: the market for real estate space and the market for real estate assets. After describing the size and character of flows and stocks in the U.S. real estate market, we use our framework to demonstrate the important connections between the space and asset markets. We illustrate how these real estate markets are affected by the nation's macroeconomy and financial markets, tracing out the impacts resulting from various exogenous shocks on rents, asset prices, construction and the stock of real estate.     

Correlation Dynamics and Determinants in International Securitized Real Estate Markets

We find the correlation movements among eight developed securitized real estate markets and among their stock markets are quite synchronized over the period from 1995 through 2012. There is a high degree of correlation dependence with many of the realized correlation series subject to regime switching. Moreover, international correlations of public property returns could be significantly explained by five real estate variables that include global real estate securities market volatility, co‐existence of real estate investment trust (REIT) influence, underlying direct real estate return performance differential, real estate securities volatility differential and real estate securities market size differential after controlling for macroeconomic influence and stock market effect. The importance of the control and real estate variables in explaining the return correlations varies across the economies examined.     

The Integration of Commercial Real Estate Markets and Stock Markets

This paper tests whether commercial real estate markets (both exchange-traded and non-exchange-traded) are integrated with stock markets using multifactor asset pricing models. The results support the hypothesis that the market for exchange-traded real estate companies, including REITs, is integrated with the market for exchange-traded (non-real-estate) stocks. Moreover, the degree of integration has significantly increased during the 1990s. However, when appraisal-based returns (adjusted for smoothing) are used to construct real estate portfolio returns, the results fail to support the integration hypothesis, although this may reflect the inability of these estimated private market returns to accurately proxy for commercial real estate returns. Interestingly, the growth rate in real per capita consumption is consistently priced in both commercial real estate markets and stock markets, whereas previous studies have found mixed evidence on the role of consumption in explaining ex ante stock returns.     

Prices and Departures in European Domestic Aviation Markets

Using data on 172 domestic city-pair markets in eight European countries, weinvestigate the effect of the market structure on airlines choices of departuresand prices. We find that flag carriers have a higher number of departures thanother airlines and that it is more likely that flag carriers are monopolists. At thesame time flag carriers do not have a higher ticket price than other airlines. Theinfluence of market power, measured with the Herfindahl index, does not havea significant effect on ticket prices, but a significant effect on the number ofdepartures: decreased market concentration and an increased number of airlinesresults in increased aggregate frequencies. Comparing the predicted ticket prices,at sample mean, between monopoly and non-monopoly routes we can reject thehypothesis of differences in equilibrium price. However, the predicted aggregatenumber of departures, calculated at sample mean, is significantly higher at non-monopoly routes compared with monopoly routes.     

Price Dispersion in Mortgage Markets

Using transaction‐level data on Canadian mortgage contracts, we document an increase in the average discount negotiated off the posted price and in rate dispersion. Our aim is to identify the beneficiaries of discounting and to test whether dispersion is caused by price discrimination. The standard explanation for dispersion in credit markets is risk‐based pricing. Our contracts are guaranteed by government‐backed insurance, so risk cannot be the main factor. We find that lenders set prices that reflect consumer bargaining leverage, not just costs. The presence of dispersion implies a lack of competition, but our results show this to be consumer specific.     

Asymmetric Volatility, Correlation and Returns Dynamics Between the U.S. and U.K. Securitized Real Estate Markets

We construct synchronously priced indices of securitized property listed on the New York Stock Exchange and London Stock Exchange. The indices are then utilized to examine dynamic information flows between the two markets. By analyzing returns behavior, asymmetric volatility spillover effects and exceedance correlations, this study shows that the real estate markets in these two countries experience significant interaction on a daily basis when synchronously priced data are utilized. These results are different from when close-to-close returns are examined, implying that the use of close-to-close data can misconstrue the true dynamics that exist between these markets. Results also show significant asymmetric effects on both the volatility and correlation dynamics between the markets. This has several implications for property portfolio managers, indicating that positive and negative news impact the markets differently. This is particularly true for the United Kindom, where daily foreign news from the United States can influence U.K. volatility.     

A Model of Market Power in Customer Markets

We develop a model for studying dynamic competition in environments with frictions that lead to partial lock-in of customers to products. The dynamic aspects associated with customer retention and acquisition introduce pricing incentives that do not exist in more traditional, static product markets. The proposed model, while highly stylized, maintains certain symmetry properties that allow us to obtain equilibrium existence and uniqueness. We then study the comparative statics of the model and derive a closed-form relationship between average equilibrium markups and the Herfindahl index. We illustrate how the model can be used by analyzing mergers in such a dynamic environment.     

Repeat‐Sales Indexes: Estimation without Assuming that Errors in Asset Returns Are Independently Distributed

This article proposes an alternative specification for the second stage of the Case‐Shiller repeat‐sales method. This specification is based on serial correlation in the deviations from the mean one‐period returns on the underlying individual assets, whereas the original Case‐Shiller method assumes that the deviations from mean returns by the underlying individual assets are i.i.d. The methodology proposed in this article is easy to implement and provides more accurate estimates of the standard errors of returns under serial correlation. The repeat‐sales methodology is generally used to construct an index of prices or returns for unique, infrequently traded assets such as houses, art and musical instruments, which are likely to be prone to exhibit serial correlation in returns. We demonstrate our methodology on a data set of art prices and on a data set of real estate prices from the city of Amsterdam.     

Return and Volatility Transmission in U.S. Housing Markets

This article uses the Case‐Shiller U.S. Home Price Indices to analyze spatial dependencies across 16 metropolitan markets for the period January 1989 to June 2006. Return transmission patterns establish New York, San Francisco and Miami as among the most influential markets. In terms of volatility linkages, there is a considerable amount of transmission in the East between New York, Boston and Washington, DC, and innovations in the housing markets of Miami, Los Angeles and San Francisco play an influential role within their respective regions. In comparison, markets in the Central and Mountain regions appear to be relatively independent from external influences. Overall, the linkages appear to be more intensive during the active phase of the real estate market (1999–2006) than during the calm phase (1989–1998).     

Third-Degree Price Discrimination in Oligopoly when Markets are Covered*

We analyze oligopolistic third-degree price discrimination relative to uniform pricing when markets are covered. Pricing equilibria are critically determined by supply-side features such as the number of firms and their marginal cost differences. It follows that each firm's Lerner index under uniform pricing is equal to the weighted harmonic mean of the firm's relative margins under discriminatory pricing. Uniform pricing then lowers average prices and raises consumer surplus. We can calculate the gain in consumer surplus and loss in firms' profits from uniform pricing based only on the market data of the discriminatory equilibrium (i.e., prices and quantities).     

国际工程设计与承包市场的相关性分析

依据1995～2004年美国《ENR》杂志公布的数据，运用SPSS软件从国家、地区以及全球的角度，对国际工程设计营业额与工程承包营业额的相关性进行了定量分析，并对分析的结果作了相应的解释。中还结合我国(除港澳台外)国际工程设计和承包市场相关性的特点，提出了发展我国国际工程设计与承包业的建议。     

The Integration of Mortgage Markets and Capital Markets

In this paper, we develop a model to predict the impact of deregulation in the form of relaxing interest rate control on the integration between the mortgage credit market and the general credit market. The model is tested through the examination of the long-term Granger-like equilibrium relationship between mortgage interest rates and general interest rates in the pre-1980 regulated vs. the post-1980 deregulated periods. It is shown that the level of regulation, in the form of targeting general interest rate levels, contributes to the segmentation of the mortgage market from the capital market. To test this model, we compare the relationship between mortgage interest rates and general interest rates around 1980 where major control on interest rate levels in capital markets was lifted. Using Engle and Granger's procedure to overcome the estimation problem from nonstationarity in the interest rate series, we are able to find that the two interest rates were cointegrated after 1980 but not before. More importantly, it appears that the two markets were already integrated before the full development of the secondary mortgage markets between 1984 and 1987. Therefore, we conclude that the bulk of the integration between the mortgage and capital markets was completed as a result of the removal of interest rate controls around 1980, in contrast with previous studies that find integration occurred during the mid-1980s primarily as a result of the rapid development of the secondary mortgage markets.     

Price Controls and Market Structure: Evidence from Gasoline Retail Markets

In this paper we study the effect of price floor regulations on the organization and performance of markets. The standard interpretation of the effects of these policies is concerned with short‐run market distortions associated with excess supply. Since price controls prevent markets from clearing, they lead to higher prices. While this analysis may be correct in the short‐run, it does not consider the dynamic equilibrium consequences of price controls. We demonstrate that price floor regulations can have important long‐run effects on the the structure of markets by crowding them and creating endogenous barriers to entry for low‐cost retailers. Moreover, we show that these factors can indirectly lower productivity and possibly even prices. We test this in the context of an actual regulation imposed in the retail gasoline market in the Canadian province of Québec and show that the policy led to more competition between smaller/less efficient stations. This resulted in lowered sales, and, despite the reduction in efficiency, did not increase prices.