In the field of urban economics, it is well understood that real estate prices typically decline with increasing distance from Central Business Districts (CBDs). This relation is largely due to the higher cost and longer time associated with commuting from more distant locations, a key factor in property valuation. Current data shows an evident pat...
Until a few years ago, there was very little movement in the market for office space. After the open-plan office landscape became standard in the late 20th-century, the market trend was mostly about constantly optimizing the density of workplaces because of continuously increasing rents in most cities across the world. Only recently, with the adven...
To hedge, or not to hedge? Although the question is not quite as dramatic as Prince Hamlet's in Shakespeare's masterpiece, it is still a relevant question for any global real estate investor, especially during times when the global financial markets are turbulent and volatility is spiking. Download PDF here Home bias versus international diversific...
The effectiveness of government policies in stabilizing home prices has drawn massive attention among global policymakers. The attention is justified: according to the IMF, despite ever-tightening policy measures in the post-crisis era, supported by cheap financing, global real house prices have recovered to their 2007 peak levels (see Figure 1). A...
Technology has shifted the way people live and work, creating new opportunities for business and driving the economic growth. Twelve disruptive technologies are believed to bring significant economic impacts by 2025 (McKinsey Global Institute, 2013), whereof mobile internet is deemed to imply the largest disruption by allowing for service delivery ...
Global trade disputes are nothing new, as can be seen in the below figure that shows complaints lodged with the WTO since its formation 23 years ago, in 1995. Historically, most disputes were able to be resolved within 15 months, and the party lodging the complaint usually wins.
However, the United States recently decided to adopt a vastly different approach in an attempt to resolve the trade imbalances and disputes by imposing additional tariffs on some of its trading partners including the European Union, Canada, Mexico, and China. The head of the National Foreign Trade Council and a former negotiator, Rufus Yerxa, likened that to “throwing out the rule book on trade.” He said, “I’ve been dealing with this stuff for four decades and I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Not surprisingly, this move by America has been met with immediate countermeasures from its trading partners. And these tit-for-tat increases between the United States and the other countries essentially marked the start of a trade war. Although the scale of the trade war is still currently relatively small, it has been met with criticisms from governments and businesses all over the world, including US businesses and farmers.
In this ASIA INSIGHTS, we will take a look at how the trade war came about, and what that means for China’s economy and its real estate market.
Jakarta, as a capital city and Indonesia's economic center, has been a strong magnet for most people in the country to work or to establish a business. However, high land price in Jakarta causes housing become less affordable, thus, living in the outskirts of Jakarta and commuting to the workplace has become a preferred option to many people. The h...
China’s East Coast became wealthy over the past decades thanks to its access to the sea and hence to global trade. Today, the Belt-and-Road initiative starts to link China’s inland cities to the intercontinental trading routes. The augmented revival of the Silk Road raises the strategic importance of those cities and further enhances their strong economic growth.
As a younger generation enters the workforce in Asia’s metropolises, various concepts catering for a trendy lifestyle, and at the same time increasing urban density, are emerging in the real estate sector. The concepts of co-working and co-living create a working and housing environment that supports collaboration, openness, knowledge sharing, innovation, and social interaction.
It has long been established that buildings are responsible for over one third of all resource consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. With real estate being the biggest asset class, sustainable investing in property seems like an obvious thing to do. Like so often, however, the real challenge lies in the execution, and in particular in the credible assessment of true sustainability.
Indonesia is the world's largest archipelago with an area of nearly 2 million square kilometers. It consists of five major islands, namely Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and Papua, and is divided into 34 provinces. Based on the latest numbers in 2016, 258 million people are living in Indonesia, making it the fourth most populated country in ...
Over the next decade, emerging Asia will invest around 5 to 6% of its GDP per year into infrastructure related projects. This translates into approximately USD 750 to 900 billion of new investment each year. Infrastructure investment has both short- and long-term benefits for a country's GDP as it helps to increase productivity, cut costs of econo...
Supported by exceptional economic and business conditions, returns on equities and bonds during the past 30 years were considerably higher than the long-term trend. The high returns over the past decades in Western regions stemmed from declines in inflation and interest rates from unusually high levels in the 1970s and early 1980s, from strong GDP...