Abstract:
The seminar examines the October 2021 announcement of Hong Kong’s Northern Metropolis Plan as a quasinatural experiment to assess short-run impacts on household behavior. Using difference-in-differences on 100,576 housing transactions, 4.7 million consumption records, and demographic indicators across 18 districts, Prof. Fan documents a 3.9% increase in housing prices in the Northern Metropolis one year after the announcement, with a sharper 6.9% rise in the first four months. Over the same initial period, local consumption increased by 4.1%, consistent with anticipated housing-wealth effects and concentrated in the private housing market. Demographically, the treated region saw inflows of higher-educated, higher-income households, more families with children, and rising school enrollments; there are also spillovers to Shenzhen’s housing market. While cross-region gaps appear to narrow in the short term, within-region inequality may widen, as early gains skew toward higher socioeconomic groups, underscoring policy needs around affordability and welfare.
Biography:
Prof. Fan’s research on social and environmental sustainability has appeared in Nature Climate Change, Nature Cities, AEJ: Economic Policy, Review of Finance, Journal of Urban Economics, and Applied Energy. She has received multiple awards for teaching and research and is ranked in the global top 8% of female economists (IDEAS/RePEc, past 10 years). Her work has informed the World Bank, United Nations, and Singapore’s Ministry of National Development, and has been featured by The Economist, VoxChina, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, The Straits Times, and Channel NewsAsia.
The seminar examines the October 2021 announcement of Hong Kong’s Northern Metropolis Plan as a quasinatural experiment to assess short-run impacts on household behavior. Using difference-in-differences on 100,576 housing transactions, 4.7 million consumption records, and demographic indicators across 18 districts, Prof. Fan documents a 3.9% increase in housing prices in the Northern Metropolis one year after the announcement, with a sharper 6.9% rise in the first four months. Over the same initial period, local consumption increased by 4.1%, consistent with anticipated housing-wealth effects and concentrated in the private housing market. Demographically, the treated region saw inflows of higher-educated, higher-income households, more families with children, and rising school enrollments; there are also spillovers to Shenzhen’s housing market. While cross-region gaps appear to narrow in the short term, within-region inequality may widen, as early gains skew toward higher socioeconomic groups, underscoring policy needs around affordability and welfare.