Speculative behavior in a housing market: Boom and bust

We study a housing market with household buyers, speculative investors and property developers in a Walrasian scenario. We show that in addition to the factors that affect the real demand of household buyers and the development cost of property developers, investors' speculative behavior is an important factor explaining housing price evolution and dynamics. In particular, investors' extrapolative expectations may drive the housing price to persistently deviate from its benchmark value and even to explode. In contrast, investors' mean-reverting strategy can balance out the position of trend extrapolators, which may stabilize an otherwise explosive housing market. Moreover, the evolutionary process of housing prices driven by investors' speculative behavior is path-dependent in the sense that different initial market conditions may result in different price paths, which corresponds to the localization property empirically documented in the real housing market. In addition, within the stylized model, we provide some policy implications through analyzing the limitation and effectiveness of policy adjustments via down payment and development cost, and find that the decrease of development cost is a better measure to adjust the housing market when it booms or busts.     

Population and house prices in the United Kingdom

Real house prices rise in the United Kingdom amid growing concern of an impending correction. The rate of household formation has increased with strong population growth, due to elevated rates of natural increase and net migration, and lack of growth in average household size, due to a rise in single‐person households with population ageing. This paper presents an overlapping generations model of housing, endogenous labour, savings and growth to analyse the effect of an increase in the household formation rate and speculative demand under rational expectations on house prices in a general equilibrium. We find that real house prices rise over time if the rate of household formation outstrips the rate of housing supply, but do not follow a speculative bubble path in the long run. The results explain why the upward trend in real house prices reflects market fundamentals and has continued despite population ageing as the number of working and retired households grows relative to the number of older people seeking to sell.     

通胀预期对未来住房价格的影响——基于消费者信心指数的分析

以消费者信心指数作为通货膨胀预期指标,以中国1999—2010年住房市场月度数据为样本,实证检验通货膨胀预期对未来住房价格的影响。实证检验结果表明,通货膨胀预期会导致住房价格上涨,即生产者和消费者对通货膨胀预期将推动住房价格的不断上涨,因此,稳定通货膨胀预期对于稳定住房价格具有十分重要的作用。     

房产税与投机泡沫——基于天津的实证研究

The main purpose of this paper is to identify and measure the potential effect of property tax on speculative bubble in residential property market in China where the issue on the introduction of property tax is still fiercely debated. As a primary and necessary step, we firstly provide an empirical analysis on housing price dynamics of Tianjin. Moreover, this paper proposes a method to identify and measure the potential effect of property tax on speculative bubble in housing market. To capture the actual influence of property tax, we divide the effect into short-term one and long-term one and measure them respectively based on the information provided by estimation result of housing price structure.      

房地产“限购令”的调控机制与政策反思*——基于单中心双环城市模型的分析

近年来中国城市住房价格快速上涨,政府推出房地产“限购令”,以期调整房地产市场,控制城市房价。本文构建了带“限购令”政策约束条件的单中心双环城市住房市场模型,利用数值模拟的方法,从理论上分析房地产“限购令”的政策效果和作用机制。结果显示,限购政策使大中小城市房价均有所下跌,中小城市房价的下降幅度大于大城市的幅度,城市的投机性住房需求越大,限购政策的效果越明显。本文认为“限购令”作为非市场调控手段,仅可作权宜之计而非长久之策,应充分考虑城市的异质性特征,对限购政策进行辨证选择。     

Did bubbles migrate from the stock to the housing market in China between 2005 and 2010?

The speculative nature of both stock and housing markets in China has attracted the attention of observers. However, while stock market data are easily available, the low frequency and low quality of publicly available housing price data hampers the study of the relationship between the two markets. We use original hedonic weekly resale housing prices of a major Chinese housing market and study them in conjunction with Shanghai's stock market index in the second half of the 2000s. The use of the Phillips et al. (2015 a,b) recursive explosive‐root test enables us to detect and date speculative episodes in both markets. We then implement the Greenaway‐McGrevy and Phillips (2016) methodology to detect the presence of migration between the two types of bubbles. We detect significant migration from the stock to the housing market bubble in 2009 and a temporary spillover in 2007.     

Forecasting Errors in the Absence of a Futures Market: The Seasonal Allocation of Wheat Supplies in India

Agricultural policy in developing countries is strongly shaped by views about speculation in the foodgrain markets. The central issue is whether speculative expectations are rational. Yet, data availability and the absence of futures markets rarely permits a direct examination of this hypothesis. However, the government intervenes in the Indian wheat market in a manner that allows speculative expectations to be inferred from government purchase of grain. The application of standard tests of rational expectations is complicated by measurement errors. Results show systematic biases in forecasting errors of a form that would not be sustainable in the presence of a futures market.     

异质预期演化与我国房价泡沫的形成

本文基于演化金融方法,将房地产市场投资者预期分为稳健型预期（投资策略是根据基本面投资）和风险型预期（投资策略是追涨杀跌）两类,同时投资者会根据市场环境调整自身预期,在此基础上测度了不同类型预期在我国房价泡沫形成中的作用,并进一步区分了不同城市房价泡沫的类型。研究表明：尽管稳健型预期对房价泡沫存在显著抑制效应,但风险型预期的放大效应在房价泡沫形成中起了主导作用;此外,东部地区城市房价泡沫主要属于强风险型预期与强稳健型预期型,中西部地区城市房价泡沫则主要属于弱稳健型预期型。     

Speculative bubbles,crashes and rational expectations

Self ending speculative bubbles, i.e., speculative bubbles followed by market crashes, are consistent with the assumption of rational expectations. More generally, speculative bubbles may take all kinds of shapes. Detecting their presence or rejecting their existence is likely to prove very hard.     

The impact of credit rationing on the real sector: a study of the effect of mortgage rates and terms on housing starts

Various studies of the impact of credit rationing on the housing sector have examined its effect on mortgage terms and flows. If credit rationing has a significant effect on the economy, it must affect the real sector, i.e. housing starts. This paper examines the causal relationships between six different variables which describe mortgage rates and terms and single family housing starts. Two different types of tests for economic causality are used. The results indicate that neither credit rationing nor mortgage rates affect housing starts for the period 1963–1980. There is some evidence that housing prices have a causal relationship to housing starts, possibly reflecting speculative motives. On balance, the results are consistent with the rational expectations theory.     

Speculative bubbles or market fundamentals? An investigation of US regional housing markets

This paper investigates the existence of speculative bubbles in the US national and 21 regional housing markets over three decades (1978–2015). A new method for real-time monitoring exuberance in housing markets is proposed. By taking changes in the macroeconomic conditions (such as interest rate, per-capita income, employment, and population growth) into consideration, the new method provides better control for housing market fundamentals and thereby it is expected to significantly reduce the chance of false positive identification. Compared with the method of Phillips et al. (2015a, 2015b), the new approach finds a dramatic reduction in the number of speculative housing markets and shorter bubble episodes in the US. It locates only one bubble episode in the early-to-mid 2000s over the whole sample period in the national housing market. At the regional level, it identifies two periods of speculation: late 1980s and early-to-mid 2000s. The early-to-mid 2000s bubble episode lasts longer and involves 16 metropolitan statistical areas.     

Measuring Bubble Expectations and Investor Confidence

This paper presents evidence on two types of investor attitudes that change in important ways through time, with important consequences for speculative markets. The paper explores changes in bubble expectations and investor confidence among institutional investors in the U.S. stock market at six-month intervals for the period 1989 to 1998 and for individual investors at the start and end of this period.

Based on the results of the questionnaires administered during the period, the author develops specific time-series indicators for each of the following: a speculative bubble (an unstable situation with expectations for a increase in the short term only), a negative speculative bubble (an unstable situation with expectations for a downturn in the short term only), and investor confidence (a feeling that nothing can go wrong).

Using the indicators, the author produces indexes indicating the average percentage of the population at a given time with bubble expectations, negative bubble expectations, and investor confidence, respectively.     

Regime switching and the (in)stability of the price–rent relationship: evidence from the US

Present value models of house prices assert that in the absence of self-fulfilling bubbles, a house price is equal to the present discount value of all future rents, which implies a linear relationship between house price and rent, and hence a stable price-to-rent ratio. Using a Markov switching error correction model, we re-examine this relationship in the US housing market and find two distinctive regimes: one with a long-run relation between house price and rent predicted by the present value models and the other in which the relation is nonlinear. Furthermore, we find evidence that deviations of house prices from the present value models’ predictions are caused by the overreaction of house prices to movements in rents rather than speculative bubbles attributable to extraneous factors.     

外汇市场干预信号渠道与投机头寸相关性研究

文章主要通过研究外汇市场干预操作与货币政策改变之间是否存在相关性,来考察中央银行在外汇市场上进行冲销干预的效果。在央行拥有内部信息,投机者拥有基本面私有信息的条件下,文章使用GARCH时间序列模型,以期货市场上能够反映市场参与者对公开及私有信息理解的投机净头寸(变化)数据作为预期的代理变量展开分析。文章的结论不支持信号渠道,外汇市场上的可预期干预结果更可能与央行期望的干预方向相反,并且过去的投机者净头寸持有量可以促使干预发生。     

HOUSING AND HOUSING FINANCE IN AN ERA OF INFLATION AND DISINFLATION: INTRODUCTION

So far, the 1980s have been the decade of disinflation in the housing market. The United States has experienced four remarkable years during which house prices have declined in real terms, and, at least in some markets, in nominal terms as well. At the same time, mortgage interest rates have risen to unprecedented levels, and the housing finance system has experienced extraordinary stresses, which are contributing to a remarkably rapid process of fundamental structural change. This comes immediately after a 15-year period of variable, but persistent and accelerating inflation, culminating in a speculative housing boom from 1977 to 1979.     

Sunspots and self-fulfilling beliefs in the U.S. housing market

This paper provides a rational expectations equilibrium framework to organize the following observations about the U.S. housing market from 1975 to 2007: (i) housing occupancy patterns were approximately constant, (ii) rents were stable, and (iii) house prices appreciated considerably in the late 1990s. I develop a model based on search and matching theory and close it by specifying a state of household confidence that is assumed to take one of two sunspot-driven values: normal or exuberant. The model generates a substantial increase in house prices and stable rents as the probability of the exuberant state increases, driven by self-fulfilling beliefs. I explore which aspects of the parameterization are important for generating a large appreciation in house prices in the model.     

Housing Fever in Australia 2020–23: Insights from an Econometric Thermometer

Australian housing markets experienced widespread and, in some cases, extraordinary growth in prices between 2020 and 2023. Using recently developed methodology that accounts for fundamental economic drivers, we assess the existence and degree of speculative behaviour, as well as the timing of exuberance and downturns in these markets. Our findings indicate that speculative behaviour was indeed present in six of the eight capital cities at some time over the period studied. The sequence of events in this nation-wide housing bubble began in the Brisbane market and concluded in Melbourne, Canberra, and Hobart following the interest rate rise implemented by the Reserve Bank of Australia in May 2022. As of March 2023, the housing markets in Sydney, Canberra and Hobart had broadly regained stability, while Melbourne's return to its normal state is more gradual. In addition, over-corrections against fundamentals are evident in the housing markets of Brisbane, Adelaide, Darwin and Perth. For regular updates on the housing markets, readers may visit the authors' website at https://www.housing-fever.com .     

论投机性泡沫的内生性——基于一个模拟投机交易过程的经验模型

通过一个简约的模拟投机交易的经验模型,阐述了投机性泡沫是投机者对资产价格预期的一种自我实现①,它内生于投机者对资产价格进行无约束的套利交易过程中,其内在机制是交易数量的加速膨胀和预期的资产价格增长的相互作用。并据此认为政府管理部门首先应根据经济宏观和微观运行状况,结合资产的特点,为资产价格确立一个目标区域,并运用结构性的货币政策、延展交易资产的持有时间以及征收交易税等手段对资产价格进行有效管理,以防范投机性泡沫的形成和扩展。     

Impact of government intervention in the housing market: evidence from the housing purchase restriction policy in China

In 2010, a housing purchase restriction policy was announced by China’s central government and implemented gradually by several prefecture governments. In this article, we empirically investigate this policy’s effect on the housing market. Using a difference-in-difference framework, we show that the housing purchase restriction policy reduces housing prices and transaction amounts but does not influence the housing investment or construction markets. Moreover, upstream industry suffers more than downstream industry. The results are robust to a battery of robustness checks. Heterogeneity exists across cities. We find that first- and second-tier cities as well as highly urbanized cities experience great declines in housing prices after the policy’s implementation, especially cites that had high housing prices in 2010 and cities with high real estate investment as a proportion of fixed asset investment. However, the housing policy is less effective in curbing speculative demand.     

异质信念、投机均衡与农产品期货定价*

农产品期货市场套利并不充分,交易者也不是完全理性的。本文假设农产品期货市场有限套利、交易者异质信念并遵循“经验法则”预期,构建了农产品期货投机均衡定价模型,并认为集中竞价规则下产生的农产品期货价格是由交易者的预期决定的;前期期货价格水平、现货价格和前期期货价格的变动趋势、不同类型交易者的比例结构及其预期模式共同影响农产品期货价格的形成与波动;基本分析法交易者占主导地位的农产品期货市场具有更高的套期保值与价格发现效率。针对中国七种主要农产品期货的实证结果显示,农产品期货投机均衡定价模型对解释中国农产品期货价格的形成与波动是有效的。这意味着在期货行情系统中实时披露现货价格信息,培育和引导交易者运用基本分析法预测期货价格走势,有助于提升农产品期货市场的效率。