Dynamics of the Condominium Market in Singapore

This study examines economic and market factors that drive the demand, supply, and pricing of condominiums in Singapore using a 2-stage least squares regression methodology. This empirical study covers a sample period of 12 years from 1988 to 2000. The condominium housing demand model showed that GDP growth and the inflation rate had positive relationships with condominium demand one quarter ahead. However, demand for condominiums was negatively related to one-quarter lagged stock price change, two-quarter lagged condominium housing price change, lagged demand in the previous two quarters, and one-quarter lagged household formation. On the supply side, changes in last-quarter condominium housing stock, condominium commencement, the prime lending rate, and current and lagged-quarter labor costs would adversely affect developers’ decisions to commence new condominium projects. In the condominium price model, the dummy variable used to test the effects of the government’s anti-speculation policies in May 1996, which increased the supply of residential lands and restricted the loan quantum to a limit of 80% of the housing price, was significant and positive. It implied that the policies were effective in dampening condominium prices by 0.32% per quarter for two consecutive quarters in 4Q1996 and 1Q1997.Seniors housing, Korea, consumer behavior, housing policy

Order flow dynamics around extreme price changes on an emerging stock market

We study the dynamics of order flows around large intraday price changes using ultra-high-frequency data from the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. We find a significant reversal of price for both intraday price decreases and increases with a permanent price impact. The volatility, the volume of different types of orders, the bid-ask spread, and the volume imbalance increase before the extreme events and decay slowly as a power law, which forms a well-established peak. The volume of buy market orders increases faster and the corresponding peak appears earlier than for sell market orders around positive events, while the volume peak of sell market orders leads buy market orders in the magnitude and time around negative events. When orders are divided into four groups according to their aggressiveness, we find that the behaviors of order volume and order number are similar, except for buy limit orders and canceled orders that the peak of order number postpones two minutes later after the peak of order volume, implying that investors placing large orders are more informed and play a central role in large price fluctuations. We also study the relative rates of different types of orders and find differences in the dynamics of relative rates between buy orders and sell orders and between individual investors and institutional investors. There is evidence showing that institutions behave very differently from individuals and that they have more aggressive strategies. Combing these findings, we conclude that institutional investors are more informed and play a more influential role in driving large price fluctuations.Comment: 22 page

REITs, interest rates and stock prices in Malaysia

This paper examines the dynamic linkages between real estate investment trusts (REITs), which are a proxy for investment in real estate, interest rates and stock prices in Malaysia over the period 2006 to 2009. Two mechanisms have been proposed to interpret the relationship between investment in real estate and stocks. The first is the wealth effect, which states that investors with unanticipated gains in share prices will invest in real estate. The second is the credit-price effect, which states that if real estate prices increase, firms holding commercial real estate will have large unrealized capital gains, meaning that investors will bid up the equity value of the firm. This suggests that the housing market will lead the stock market. Over the period 2006 to 2009, real estate and stock prices have surged in tandem in Malaysia. We find evidence of a wealth effect in the short-run, while in the long-run for some REITs we find support for the wealth effect, while for others we find evidence of feedback effects between real estate and stocks. This finding is consistent with a spiralling upturn in both prices and provides support for both effects operating together. The results lend support to concerns that the Malaysian real estate market is characterized by an asset bubble and that a decline in the stock market could burst the Malaysian real estate bubble.REITs, interest rates, stock prices, Malaysia

Comparing two financial crises: the case of Hong Kong real estate markets

Hong Kong is no stranger to bubbles or crisis. During the Asian Financial Crisis(AFC), the Hong Kong housing price index drops more than 50% in less than a year. The same market then experiences the Internet Bubble, the SARS attack, and recently the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). This paper attempts to provide some “stylized facts” of the real estate markets and the macroeconomy, and follow the event-study methodology to examine whether the markets behave differently in the AFC and GFC, and discuss the possible linkage to the change in government policies (“learning effect”) and the flow of Chinese consumers and investors to Hong Kong (“China factor”).regime switching, structural change, small open economy, bounded rationality, banking policy

"The Road to Debt Deflation, Debt Peonage, and Neofeudalism"

What is called "capitalism" is best understood as a series of stages. Industrial capitalism has given way to finance capitalism, which has passed through pension fund capitalism since the 1950s and a US-centered monetary imperialism since 1971, when the fiat dollar (created mainly to finance US global military spending) became the world's monetary base. Fiat dollar credit made possible the bubble economy after 1980, and its substage of casino capitalism. These economically radioactive decay stages resolved into debt deflation after 2008, and are now settling into a leaden debt peonage and the austerity of neo-serfdom. The end product of today's Western capitalism is a neo-rentier economy—precisely what industrial capitalism and classical economists set out to replace during the Progressive Era from the late 19th to early 20th century. A financial class has usurped the role that landlords used to play—a class living off special privilege. Most economic rent is now paid out as interest. This rake-off interrupts the circular flow between production and consumption, causing economic shrinkage—a dynamic that is the opposite of industrial capitalism’s original impulse. The "miracle of compound interest," reinforced now by fiat credit creation, is cannibalizing industrial capital as well as the returns to labor. The political thrust of industrial capitalism was toward democratic parliamentary reform to break the stranglehold of landlords on national tax systems. But today's finance capital is inherently oligarchic. It seeks to capture the government—first and foremost the treasury, central bank, and courts—to enrich (indeed, to bail out) and untax the banking and financial sector and its major clients: real estate and monopolies. This is why financial "technocrats" (proxies and factotums for high finance) were imposed in Greece, and why Germany opposed a public referendum on the European Central Bank’s austerity program.Debt Deflation; Neofeudalism; Economic Rent; Finance Capitalism; Classical Political Economy; Pension Fund Capitalism; Bubble Economy

2004 ANNUAL AGRICULTURAL OUTLOOK

Farm Management,

Wealth effects in emerging market economies

We build a panel of 14 emerging economies to estimate the magnitude of housing, stock market, and money wealth effects on consumption. Using modern panel data econometric techniques and quarterly data for the period 1990:1-2008:2, we show that: (i) wealth effects are statistically significant and relatively large in magnitude; (ii) housing wealth effects tend to be smaller for Asian emerging markets while stock market wealth effects are, in general, smaller for Latin American countries; (iii) housing wealth effects have increased for Asian coutries in recent years; and (iv) consumption reacts stronger to negative than to positive shocks in housing and financial wealth. JEL Classification: E21, E44, D12Consumption, emerging markets, wealth e¤ects

Volatility connectedness and market dependence across major financial markets in China economy

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Housing Price Dispersion: An Empirical Investigation

price dispersion, search models, macroeconomic factor, time aggregation