Dynamic hedge ratio for stock index futures: application of threshold VECM

This study represents one of the first papers in stock-index-futures arbitrage literature to investigate the effects of arbitrage threshold on stock index futures hedging effectiveness by using threshold vector error correction model (hereafter threshold VECM). Moreover, in contrast to prior studies focusing on examining case studies involving mature stock markets, this study not only adopts US S&P 500 stock market as the sample but also adds an analysis of one emerging stock market, Hungarian BSI and examines the differences between them. Finally, this investigation employs a rolling estimation process to examine the impact of arbitrage threshold behaviours on the setting of futures hedging ratio. The empirical findings of this study are consistent with the following notions. First, arbitrage behaviour reduces co-movement between futures and spot markets and increases the volatility of both futures and spot markets. Second, this article denotes the outer regime of futures-spot market for the case of Hungarian BSI (US S&P 500) as a crisis (an unusual) condition. Moreover, arbitrage threshold behaviours make remarkable (unremarkable) shift on optimal hedge ratio between two different market regimes for the case of Hungarian BSI (US S&P 500). Finally, the framework involving regime-varying hedge ratio designed in this study provides a more efficient futures hedge ratio design for Hungarian BSI stock market, but not for US S&P 500 stock market.     

Housing and unemployment: The search for the “American Dream”

This paper constructs a model of search and bargaining across two different markets: the labor market and the housing market. Interestingly, the model highlights that housing prices and frictions in the housing market have a profound impact on labor market activity through the desire of workers to eventually purchase a home, the “American Dream.” In particular, higher housing prices adversely affect workers’ incentives in the labor market as employment can eventually lead to access to housing through the ability to purchase a home. Similarly, labor market frictions can impact housing market activity. Notably, tighter housing markets are associated with higher unemployment rates and less job creation. Consequently, our work suggests that policymakers should be very careful in implementing policies targeted towards housing – housing markets are likely to generate significant external effects to other sectors of the economy, especially the labor market.     

异质性预期、投资者行为与房价波动：上海和广州的双城记?

房地产市场中存在大量的投资者,其市场行为会使房价出现大幅的波动,从而引起市场不稳定。文章在引入投资者异质性预期假设的基础上,构建了包含房地产消费者、投资者、供给者在内的房地产市场均衡模型,分析了房地产市场中基本面型投资者和趋势型投资者的异质性行为对房价变动的影响,并利用上海和广州两个一线城市的实际数据进行了对比分析。研究结果表明：在房地产市场中,两类投资者对于未来房价不同的预期以及投资行为会引起房价的变动;上海投资者的行为整体上会使上海的房价始终处于不断上涨的趋势中,而广州投资者的行为会随着投资策略的转变而使静态下的“整体上推动房价趋势型变化”转变为“整体上将房价‘拉回’基本面价格”;房地产市场中的投资者占比会显著影响房价的变动趋势,当基本面型投资者占比上升时,房价偏离度和房价变动率降低,而当这类投资者占比达到峰值时,房价会出现拐点;投资者之间的策略转换速度也会通过引起基本面型投资者占比的变化,引起房价的频繁波动,而且策略转换速度越快,房价波动越频繁。     

The housing market and excess monetary liquidity in China

This study investigated the performance of the housing market in China, determining that from a long-term perspective, an equilibrium relationship exists between housing prices and output. However, the housing market may not be efficient in the short run. Based on the correlation between housing returns and the economic growth rate, 3 distinct states can be discerned in the performance of the Chinese housing market. The first state is a bubble period, during which housing returns are excessively high and negatively correlated with the economic growth rate; the second state is a correction period, during which housing prices are corrected toward market fundamentals; and the third state is a calm market period, during which no substantial performance or trends manifest. This study determined that excess monetary liquidity significantly influenced the housing market states; however, no such effect was observed when the interest rate was adjusted. Thus, the findings implicate that if the People’s Bank of China intends to avoid losing control of the housing market, it should exercise monetary control to avoid excess liquidity in the housing market.     

房地产业预售制度下的行为选择理论研究

本文从房地产开发商和购房者的行为选择角度探讨了房地产业的预售制度,明确回答了预售制度对于我国当前房地产业发展的重要性,认为对房地产预售制度调控的关键在于严厉打击房地产开发商和投机者的恶意炒作行为,促进合理市场预期的形成,建立合理的观测指标监控房地产业,通过对结构参数和预售融资比例的调整来调控企业行为,确保房地产业健康持续发展。     

市场失灵、政府失灵与住房保障

住房市场作为一种特殊的市场,存在着三种不同形式的市场失灵,需要政府干预加以弥补。但同时出现的政府失灵则要求我们不能完全依靠政府去矫正所有的市场缺陷。因此,政府应该从促进市场效率和增进社会公平的角度来介入住房市场,以提供住房保障为核心来定位政府在住房市场中的职能,以市场失灵为起点,以政府失灵为警戒线来确定住房保障的边界。     

Modelling structural change in the UK housing market: A comparison of alternative house price models

This paper develops a new approach to the modelling of house prices in the UK, with housing demand being conditioned directly on consumers' expenditure rather than the determinants of expenditure. Conditioning on consumption ensures that the permanent income measure used in determining the level of consumption is consistently reflected in housing demand. The effects of financial liberalisation on the relative consumption of housing and non-housing goods and services are captured using the average loan-value ratio for first-time buyers. We also allow for financial effects via the real user cost of home ownership. House prices are assumed to adjust so as to clear the housing market. The proposed model is found to have structurally stable parameters across the housing market downturn since 1990. Statistical comparisons with the more conventional models in use at HM Treasury and the Bank of England during the early 1990s provide additional evidence in favour of our proposed approach.     

Information and housing search: theory and evidence from China market

Asymmetric market information plays a role in households’ housing choice. To study this role, we theoretically and empirically examine the varied behaviours between better-informed and less-informed households in a housing market. The housing search model theoretically predicts that better-informed households are more likely to secure a better deal. With the data from Tianjin in China, hedonic models are calibrated to quantify the impacts of asymmetric information on housing search outcomes. The results show that the less-informed homebuyers need to pay around 1~2.3% more than those better-informed homebuyers after controlling the heterogeneity of housing units, which are consistent with the theoretical predictions. It suggests that policies and institutions to alleviate asymmetric information in housing market could improve the welfare of households.     

Housing booms and media coverage

This article analyses news media coverage of the housing market. Building on theories of media influence where word of mouth is the final mechanism of opinion change but media initiate discourse, I examine the relationship between news media and the recent UK house price boom. Over 30 000 articles on the UK housing market from the period 1993 to 2008 are analysed, and it is found that media Granger-caused real house price changes, suggesting the media may have influenced opinions on the housing market. However, media sentiment on the housing market did not change with the secular increase in house prices in the 2000s, suggesting that the media did not contribute to the UK’s housing boom and may have helped constrain it.     

Do low-income housing subsidies increase the occupied housing stock?

A necessary condition for justifying a policy such as subsidized low-income housing, either via tenant-based rental assistance or construction of public or private projects, is that it has a real effect on market outcomes. In this paper, we examine one aspect of the real effect of subsidized housing—does it increase the housing stock? If subsidized housing raises the quantity of occupied housing per capita, either more people are finding housing or they are being housed less densely. On the other hand, if subsidized housing merely crowds-out equivalent-quality low-income housing that otherwise would have been provided by the private sector, the housing policy may have little real effect on housing consumption. Using both Census place and MSA-level data from the decennial census and from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, we ask whether housing markets with more subsidized housing also have more total housing, after accounting for housing demand. We find that government-financed units raise the total number of units in a market, although on average one government-subsidized unit adds only one-third to one-half of a unit to the total housing stock. There is less crowd-out in more populous markets, and more crowd-out in places where there is less excess demand for subsidized housing, as measured by the number of government-financed units per eligible person. Tenant-based housing programs, such as Section 8 Certificates and Vouchers, seem to be more effective than project-based programs at targeting subsidized housing units to people who otherwise would not have their own.     

上市公司、资本虹吸与房价的地区差异

鉴于上市公司与房价地区差异的研究鲜见,文章首次从地区层面寻找上市公司影响房价的微观传导路径.研究发现,上市公司从一级市场上融资、内部人在二级市场上减持均会"虹吸"全国资金,增加当地货币资本,进而正向影响房价,即高融资或高减持地区成为"虹吸方";融资虹吸与减持虹吸对房价的影响存在差异,减持虹吸引起财富集聚,对房价的影响更多地由富裕阶层的购房需求所推动,而融资虹吸带来的财富影响比较分散.地区股票市值与房价呈现螺旋增长关系,在股市上涨期间替代效应占主导地位,两者的增长率负相关;而在下跌期间财富效应占主导地位,两者的增长率正相关.文章从企业层面阐释了房价地区差异的金融成因及路径,并试图厘清股票市场与房价的增长结构,为地区经济的协调发展提供了参考.     

Financial market and housing wealth effects on consumption: a permanent income approach

The objective of this study is to examine the financial market and housing wealth effects on consumption. Housing has the dual functions as both a commodity yielding a flow of housing services and an investment asset yielding a flow of capital income. With the construction of an empirical framework based on the vector autoregression approach, the findings from this study suggest that a rise in housing price has both a positive wealth effect and a negative price effect on consumption. While the positive wealth effect is caused by an increase in capital income, the negative price effect is caused by an increase in the cost of housing services. In addition, the housing market wealth effect increases, at the expense of the price effect, with the level of housing-market leverage. These findings imply that the government policy of land supply aiming to stimulate the economy should strike a balance between the possible wealth and price effects of the housing market.     

土地垄断供给、纵向市场关系与房地产价格——兼论基于价值链分析的房地产市场竞争促进政策

地价与房价之间并不仅仅是一种成本联系.土地市场与房地产产品市场之间还存在着纵向市场关系,在两个市场均为寡头垄断的情况下,则会存在着双重垄断加成的现象.与上下游产业之间的市场交易关系相比,垂直一体化和垂直约束同样是组织住房生产的有效方式,并有助于增加消费者剩余.此外,促进房地产开发价值链上各环节的竞争,消除其垄断行为,将是降低房价和增进居民福利的重要选择.     

信贷约束对住宅市场的影响效应——基于动态面板模型的研究

本文通过构建消费者—开发商两部门的房地产市场局部均衡模型,研究信贷约束对住宅市场的影响效应。本文利用1999～2009年中国35个大中城市的面板数据,采用动态面板GMM估计方法考察银行信贷对住宅消费和住宅价格的影响。实证结果显示:银行信贷对房地产价格产生显著的正向影响,表明信贷约束是当前房价增幅下降的重要因素之一;个人住房贷款和房地产开发贷款对房价的正向影响效应存在差异,前者的作用小于后者;个人住房贷款对居民住宅消费产生显著的正向影响,是影响居民住宅消费的最重要因素。     

The impact of housing market disturbances on the US financial system: a pre-crisis analysis

A common critique of the Federal Reserve over the past crisis is that it should have better anticipated the impact of the run-up in home mortgage debt and the subsequent housing market crash on the financial system. As a result, the Federal Reserve should have moved much more quickly to shore up financial markets. Our article tests the hypothesis that the impact of the housing market crash on the financial system could have been anticipated. Using a VAR model along with impulse response functions and variance decompositions, we examine the link between housing market mortgage debt shocks and the financial intermediaries’ credit market behaviour. We find important connections between key macroeconomic variables and the credit behaviour of these financial institutions. However, using the pre-crisis data, we find that housing market debt shocks fail to have an impact on the credit markets accessed by these firms. These results support the notion that the impact of this crisis on the financial system could not have been anticipated given the information available at the time.     

The asymmetric impacts of monetary policy on housing prices: A viewpoint of housing price rigidity

Previous studies have discovered the defensive characteristics of housing prices, which is also known as downward price rigidity. This paper discusses whether this feature would result in an asymmetric relationship between housing prices and monetary policy. This paper first uses the loss aversion behavior of traders to assess the viability of housing price rigidity in the housing market and to deduce further that if downward housing price rigidity actually existed, then the impact of monetary policy on housing prices should be asymmetric. For empirical tests, this paper uses data from the UK housing market and then uses the money supply as the proxy variable of monetary policy. The relationships between these two variables are observed. This paper performs estimation using both traditional and threshold error correction models by comparing the coefficients of both models. The results indicate that housing price is indeed asymmetrically adjusted to money supply. When housing prices increase to reflect a loose monetary policy, a modification behavior is evident. Conversely, housing prices cannot easily reflect a tight monetary policy. This result indicates that housing prices tend to overreact in upturn and underreact in downturn. The results imply that when implementing relevant policies for the housing market, the government should consider the asymmetry of housing price changes. Otherwise, the situation can easily result in the creation of a bubble or the collapse of the housing market because of incorrect policies.     

中国体制转型与城镇居民家庭财富分配差距——一个资产转换的视角

本文以中国城镇住房改革为例,从资产转换的角度研究了中国体制转型过程中城镇居民家庭财富积累及分配差距的产生。20世纪80年代以来的房屋政策鼓励工作单位将住房出售给现有居民,即住房商品化。通过1988、1995和2002年中国城镇住户收入调查的数据分析,20世纪90年代中期以来的住房商品化过程中,相对于私营部门居民家庭,干部和国有单位工作的家庭更容易以折扣价从工作单位获得住房。随着近期住房市场的繁荣,原有的以及住房商品化过程中产生的住房不平等,已经转化成国有和私营部门家庭财富的更大差距,而且干部的住房增值优势和国有部门家庭的财富优势随着市场化的推进有加速增加的趋势。     

Labor-Leisure Choice and Relative Income Concerns in the Shadow of the Housing Market

We theoretically examine the connection among labor productivity, work time, and housing costs in an economy with households differing in wages and neighborhoods differing in quality. We argue that the location rent component of housing cost is key to explicating the connection. We trace how the housing market makes relative income instrumental for maximizing utility even if households’ utility functions are not interdependent. Over time, productivity growth yields higher wages but households compete some of that away on the housing market. This structural inflation of location rents counteracts preferences to work less as wages rise and hinders the expansion of leisure. Relative income effects are shown to arise as a consequence of a market institution that monetizes socially-imbued preferences.     

A Novel Housing Price Misalignment Indicator for Germany

From 2014 until present, housing prices in Germany have been rising faster than consumer prices in all quarters except one, raising concerns about an excessive overheating of the housing market. To assess the vulnerability of the German housing market to a future realignment of prices or even a housing bust, this paper develops a housing price misalignment indicator that is composed of seven indicators, which are commonly associated with the fundamental value of residential property. An empirical application to the most recent data suggests that the German housing market exhibits an overvaluation of approximately 11%, where interest rate risk and a relatively advanced stage of the housing cycle are identified as the main factors fueling these imbalances, while a rather solid debt‐servicing capacity mitigates these imbalances since end‐2009.     

利率上调对中国住房市场影响的动态分析

构建一个简单的住房需求供给模型,从未预测到中国人民银行对利率上调和已预早测到中国人民银行要对利率进行上调两方面来分析利率上调对中国住房市场的影响。研究结果表明,利率上调通过影响住房市场供求和房租这两个途径来影响中国的住房市场,并且当住房价格上升过快时,利率上调可以作为一个调控中国房价的有效手段。