The Impact of Financial Arrangements and Institutional Form on Housing Prices

Dwellings in housing cooperatives constitute 15% of the Norwegian housing property market. The price paid for such dwellings consists of two elements: An equity price and a share of the mutual debt held by the cooperative. The interest rate paid on the housing cooperative’s mutual debt is in Norway lower than the interest rate paid on private loans. This gives rise to an “interest discount effect”. We find convincing empirical support for the interest discount effect, which contributes to a higher equity price for dwellings in housing cooperatives than for self-owned dwellings. On the other hand, we also find empirical support for a co-op discount of 9.3%. The co-op discount work in the direction of making cooperative dwellings more affordable.     

Land acquisition outcome,developer risk attitude and land development timing

Based on the matched date of initial vacant land parcels and final completed housing projects in Beijing of China from 2003 to 2015, we investigate the correlations of land acquisition outcomes, developer risk attitude and land development timing. We find that real estate developers’ land acquisition gains or losses relative to a referential land acquisition cost have significant impacts on their decisions of land development timing. Developers will postpone the land development process after prior losses in the land acquisition stage. By introducing behavioral economics into the real option model of land development, we explain this relationship from the perspective of varying risk attitude of real estate developers.

     

城镇住宅用地供应与人口变化的时空协调性研究——以湖南省14个市州为例

采用Tapio方法和区位熵法,分别构建住宅用地供求的脱钩指数和空间供求结构指数,测度2009-2017年湖南省14个市州住宅用地供应与人口变化的时序协调性和空间协调性。结果发现：全省住宅用地供应与城镇人口增长存在时序不协调,除长沙市、邵阳市和岳阳市住宅用地供应与人口增速属于扩张性挂钩外,其它城市均表现为扩张相对负脱钩,甚至部分市州在2010年出现绝对负脱钩。不同市州的不同类型的住宅用地（普通商品房和安居工程用地）供应与人口变化存在不同程度的空间分配失调。     

Subsidized and Unsubsidized Housing Stocks 1935 to 1987: Crowding out and Cointegration

Crowding out arises in many economic contexts, from the macro concern that deficit spending might crowd out investment to the micro concern that increased employment of women might result in fewer jobs for men. Here I ask whether subsidized housing crowds out unsubsidized housing in the United States, applying the econometric tools of cointegration analysis. Such crowding out proves to require stringent restrictions on the coefficients of the cointegrating relationships that link housing stocks with one another and with other economic variables. These restrictions also apply to testing for other crowding out phenomena.I find that public housing has steadily added to the total stock of housing since its inception in 1935. In contrast, I find that moderate-income, conventionally financed, subsidized housing, such as the Section 235 and 236 programs that accounted for more than 1.5 million new units between 1960 and 1987, most likely adds little or nothing to the total housing stock. These findings speak against recent proposals to provide subsidies to developers who build dwellings for moderate income Americans but offer qualified encouragement to those who advocate expansion of the conventional public housing program.     

Selectivity,Quality Adjustment and Mean Reversion in the Measurement of House Values*

This paper develops a model of price formation in the housing market which accounts for the non-random selection of those dwellings sold on the market from the stock of existing houses. The model we develop also accounts for changes in the quality of dwellings themselves and tests for mean reversion in individual house prices. The model is applied to a unique body of data representing all dwellings sold in Sweden's largest metropolitan area during the period 1982–1999. The analysis compares house price indices that account for selectivity, quality change and mean reversion with the conventional repeat sales models used to describe the course of metropolitan housing prices. We find that the repeat sales method yields systematically large biased estimates of the value of the housing stock. Our comparison suggests that the more general approach to the estimation of housing prices or housing wealth yields substantially improved estimates of the course of housing prices and housing wealth.     

Housing Price Dynamics in Time and Space: Predictability,Liquidity and Investor Returns

It is widely accepted that aggregate housing prices are predictable, but that excess returns to investors are precluded by the transactions costs of buying and selling property. We examine this issue using a unique data set—all private condominium transactions in Singapore during an eleven-year period. We model directly the price discovery process for individual dwellings. Our empirical results clearly reject a random walk in prices, supporting mean reversion in housing prices and diffusion of innovations over space. We find that, when house prices and aggregate returns are computed from models that erroneously assume a random walk and spatial independence, they are strongly autocorrelated. However, when they are calculated from the appropriate model, predictability in prices and in investment returns is completely absent. We show that this is due to the illiquid nature of housing transactions. We also conduct extensive simulations, over different time horizons and with different investment rules, testing whether better information on housing price dynamics leads to superior investment performance.     

Inclusionary Housing Policies,Stigma Effects and Strategic Production Decisions

Inclusionary housing policies enacted by municipal governments rely on a combination of legal mandates and economic incentives to encourage residential real estate developers to include affordable units in otherwise market-rate projects. These regulations provide a means of stimulating the production of mixed-income housing at a minimal cost to the public sector, but have been hypothesized to slow development and put upward pressure on housing prices. The results of the theoretical models presented in this paper suggest that inclusionary housing policies need not increase housing prices in all situations. However, any observed impact on housing prices may be mitigated by density effects and stigma effects that decrease demand for market-rate units. The results additionally suggest real estate developers are likely to respond to inclusionary housing policies by strategically altering production decisions.     

产业集聚对中国房地产价格影响的实证研究

中国房地产价格持续上涨的成因一直是学界研究的热点。产业集聚作为市场经济活动的必然现象,是否会对房地产价格产生影响?以中国35个大中城市2000~2016年的数据为样本,构建静态面板模型和动态面板模型实证检验产业集聚对房地产价格的影响。研究表明,产业集聚对房地产价格具有显著的正向影响;进一步研究发现,人口集聚和土地成本是产业集聚影响房地产价格的重要中介,即产业集聚能够通过人口集聚和土地价格上涨来推动房价上涨。基于研究结论,为保证我国房地产市场健康发展,应采取促进区域均衡协调发展、多渠道保障城市新流入人口住房和加快土地市场改革等政策措施。     

The Market for External Audit Services in the Public Sector: An Empirical Analysis of NHS Trusts

This study investigates the market for audit services in the UK National Health Service (NHS). The market has a number of interesting features, including the presence of the Audit Commission as a regulator, appointer and provider of audit services. Following a theoretical overview of audit pricing in the NHS, evidence is provided on the behaviour of private sector auditors in an environment where audit risk characteristics differ from the private sector. The research also investigates, for the first time in the public sector, the relationship between audit fees and non–audit (consultancy) fees. Comparisons are also drawn between audit fees in the public and private sectors in an analysis of audit fees by industry. Despite some key similarities, the study shows that a number of differences exist between private and public sector audit fee models. In particular, we find no evidence of Big 6 (or mid–tier) auditor premiums, but we do find a significant negative relationship between audit and consultancy fees providing support for the 'knowledge spill–over' hypothesis. In addition, the fees charged to trusts appear significantly lower than their private sector counterparts, despite trust auditors having additional duties to perform. Possible explanations for this finding are offered in the paper.     

Housing Quality in the Forward Contracts Market

Developers often conduct forward sales (or presales) before building completion to relieve financial risk and burden. However, there are worries that housing units sold in this way will turn out to be substandard because developers, who have been paid for the unfinished units, may have incentives to cut costs by lowering the quality. This is a typical moral hazard problem. Nonetheless, forward sales have been very popular in some Asian cities such as Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. A plausible explanation is that the market has efficiently adjusted the forward price for this potential quality problem according to developers’ reputations. This paper aims to theoretically explain and empirically test (1) whether reputation is reflected in forward prices and (2) whether the expected quality level matches with the actual quality level. Using the forward and spot sales data of the Hong Kong real estate market, we found that even though housing quality was not observable during presales, the market was able to capitalize developers’ reputations into forward prices accurately. This suggests that the optimal strategy for developers is to stick to the quality level implied by their reputations. A paper submitted to Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics. A Special Issue for the 2005 NUS-HKU Symposium on Real Estate Research.     

基于面板分位数回归的住宅价格影响因素分析

采用面板分位数回归方法,以全国35个大中城市为样本,利用2006—2015年的数据,对影响住宅价格的因素进行研究。结果表明：土地价格、人均储蓄余额、在岗职工平均工资、人口密度、空气质量对住宅价格有正向影响,每亿人医院或卫生院数量对住宅价格有负向影响;并且不同分位数水平下各影响因素的作用大小具有明显差异。研究结论对不同城市依据自身特征采取相应的调控政策具有一定的参考价值。     

Leverage,Consumer Finance,and Housing Prices in China

In this article, we focus on the effect of household borrowing behavior on housing prices in China, under the background of rapid growth of consumer finance during the past decade. We build a micromodel to deduce the relationship between consumers’ leverage, housing enterprises’ leverage, and housing prices and use a dynamic panel model and panel error correction model to do the empirical work. The results show that the first- and second-tier cities of China are greatly influenced by leverages, the second-tier cities also by local growth, and the third-tier cities are weakly affected by leverages but greatly affected by the land prices. Further explanations and discussions of the empirical results are given accordingly.     

Public Equity and Audit Pricing in the United States

To what degree are audit fees for U.S. firms with publicly traded equity higher than fees for otherwise similar firms with private equity? The answer is potentially important for evaluating regulatory regime design efficiency and for understanding audit demand and production economics. For U.S. firms with publicly traded debt, we hold constant the regulatory regime, including mandated issuer reporting and auditor responsibilities. We vary equity ownership and thus public securities market contextual factors, including any related public firm audit fees from increased audit effort to reduce audit litigation risk and/or pure litigation risk premium (litigation channel effects). In cross‐section, we find that audit fees for public equity firms are 20–22% higher than fees for otherwise similar private equity firms. Time‐series comparisons for firms that change ownership status yield larger percentage fee increases (decreases) for those going public (private). Results are consistent with litigation channel effects giving rise to substantial incremental audit fees for U.S. firms with public equity ownership.     

论地方政府“土地财政”对居民消费的影响——基于全国地级市面板数据的估计

基于跨期消费与投资组合模型研究了"土地财政"对于居民消费的影响机理,并利用我国2004～2010年267个地级市面板数据进行实证检验。研究发现:首先,"土地财政"通过影响居民实际收入以及推高房价共同抑制了居民消费,并且随着"土地财政"依赖程度的增加,居民将相应地增大房产部分在家庭财富配置的比重;其次我国的"房地产财富效应"不显著,但是居民住房面积的增加有助于促进居民消费;最后,提高信贷利率和改善公共服务水平都将有助于提振居民消费。因此,减少地方政府对于"土地财政"依赖、建立居民合理分享土地增值收益机制以及弥补政府保障性住房的职能缺位是提振居民消费的关键。     

Government Interference and the Efficiency of the Land Market in China

Municipal governments in China established direct control of the supply of urban land in August 2004. This paper examines whether this government action mitigates the efficiency of the residential land market. Using a unique data set of detailed land and residential community transactions with manually collected location information for residential land lots in seven Chinese cities, this paper analyzes the relationship between the land lease prices and residential property prices from the first quarter of 2001 to the fourth quarter of 2007. Results indicate that property prices determined land prices both before and after 2004:3, but the effect was significantly weaker after 2004:3. This is consistent with the hypothesis that the market for residential land became less efficient after municipal governments gained direct control of the land supply.     

Das Versicherungsaufsichtsrecht der Russischen Föderation

In recent years the Russian insurance market passed through a remarkably dynamic phase measured by the figure of licensed insurers. Nevertheless basic problems for its future development still exist. Consequently the Russian lawmaker sees need to take action. The article therefore inquires on the existing market regulation. The topic of this contribution focuses on insurance supervision law of the Russian Federation.     

新兴房屋租赁模式的思考--以一二线城市房地产市场供需为例

当前我国房地产市场出现结构性矛盾,一二城市住房价格上涨过快,而三四城市供大于求,面临较大去库存压力。因此,一些互联网企业、新兴创业投资公司乃至大型房地产企业开始在一二线城市创新住房租赁模式,布局住房租赁市场。5月4日召开的国务院常务会议提出培育和发展住房租赁市场,推进新型城镇化以满足群众住房需求。从国家政策的层面鼓励房屋租赁市场的发展,这是在年初多措并举降低房地产库存的背景下,国务院出台的又一新政。实行购租并举,发展住房租赁市场,是深化住房制度改革的重要内容,有利于加快改善居民尤其是新市民住房条件,推动新型城镇化进程,为青年创新创业提供安居保障。因此,有必要针对这一新兴业态给予一定的金融政策支持。     

The St. Petersburg paradox and capital asset pricing

Durand (J Finance 12:348–363, 1957) shows that the classical St. Petersburg paradox can apply to the valuation of a firm whose dividends grow at a constant rate forever. To capture a more realistic pattern of dividends, we model the dividend growth rate as a mean reverting process, and then use the capital asset pricing model to derive the risk-adjusted present value. The model generates an equivalent St. Petersburg game. The long-run growth rate of the payoffs (dividends) is dominant in driving the value of the game (firm), and the condition under which the value is finite is less restrictive than that of the standard game.     

住房耐用品、土地市场分割与货币失踪之谜

2008年国际金融危机后,我国M2供给增幅远高于CPI上涨幅度,这一现象被学界称为“货币失踪之谜”。本文构建了一个两部门新凯恩斯货币模型来研究这一问题。当外部需求下降后,央行降低利率以提振经济,房地产部门和非房地产部门同时扩张。由于住房属于耐用消费品,具有一定的金融属性,其需求对利率变化更敏感。利率下降后,住房需求相对普通消费品需求上升更多。因为存在土地市场分割,商住用地供给弹性较小,住房需求上升导致商住用地价格上升较多,地价上涨提升了房地产企业的抵押融资能力,房地产部门进一步扩张。普通消费品需求对利率反应小,需求较弱导致工业用地价格上升幅度较小,非房地产部门抵押融资能力小幅提升。因此,非房地产部门产出和CPI只温和扩张。Ramsey最优货币政策模拟表明,只有实现了房地产部门与非房地产部门均衡发展,才能实现社会福利最大化。     

Buyer-Type Effects in Conservation and Preservation Property Values

Properties can be bought by government agencies, land trusts, or private entities for conservation and preservation purposes, such as farmland preservation, wildlife refuges, other conservation, and cultural and historical preservation. There is variation in the dollars paid per acre across properties and across buyer type. An option value model based on future potential land uses is used to explain much of this variation. The data used in our analysis is sales transactions data for conservation and preservation purposes from throughout the United States. We find that much of the value of conservation properties is derived from future potential land uses, including housing, timber, recreation, and conservation. We confirm that public versus private buyers value options differently, which makes sense from a public good point of view, if markets are thin.