Under information asymmetry, lemons tend to be overpriced. Yet, how much overpricing premium the lemons can command is contingent on the underlying legal institutions. A set of transaction data from Hong Kong's housing market reveals that durable lemons are overpriced by 6.7% and 9.9% under the...

This paper examines the existence of excess returns in the commercial property market of Hong Kong using time series data for both valuations and transactions prices. The proposition is that if the valuation series is accurately processing transactions prices then excess returns, if they exist,...

Spatial dependence is often seen as a problem in econometrics rather than in economics. This study seeks to find an economic explanation for spatially correlated real estate prices. We posit spatial dependence as a process to discover price information from neighboring property transactions....

In pricing real estate with indifference pricing approach, market incompleteness is shown to significantly alter the conventional pricing relationships between real estate and financial asset. Specifically, we focus on the pricing implication of market comovement because comovement tends to be...

This paper investigates the interaction between housing prices and housing rentals. Standard economic models treat housing prices as the present discounted value of future rentals with the latter treated as exogenous. Casual observation, however, suggests that changes in rental prices often...

Sharp increase in house prices in Hong Kong SAR in 2009-2010 has led to concerns of an emerging real estate bubble. According to our measure of price deviation from fundamentals, which should be taken as an early warning indicator of market exuberance, the current level of house prices in Hong...

Hong Kong is one of the most expensive places to live in the world. This paper investigates the effects of retail property rents on the rents of small/medium-sized flats in Hong Kong. It is demonstrated that tourism policies such as the Individual Visit Scheme for Mainland residents, which is...

The revival of strong capital flows to emerging economies in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis in 2008-09 has rekindled the debate on the adverse effects of excessive capital inflows. We study the effects of official and illicit capital flows on Hong Kong, which is a small and open...

Emerging Asia has witnessed rapid growth of private housing and market-based housing finance in the past decade; nevertheless, market development has been uneven across countries. There is evidence that, in those economies with more flexible housing finance markets, house prices are more responsive to...

Hong Kong SAR's economy is recovering strongly as ample policy space has allowed the enaction of swift and bold policy responses to address the unprecedented crisis emanating from multiple shocks, including notably the pandemic. But the recovery remains uneven, with private consumption lagging,...