IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-15-00126.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A study of numerological superstitions in the apartments market

Author

Listed:
  • Elena B. Pokryshevskaya

    (National Research University Higher School of Economics)

  • Evgeny A. Antipov

    (National Research University Higher School of Economics)

Abstract

In this paper we study the influence of superstitions related to numbers 13 and 7 on people's buying behavior in the apartment market. A unique feature of our methodology is that we use real sales data instead of survey or pricing data. Based on the dataset from Saint-Petersburg primary real estate market we compare the share of sold apartments on floor 7 with that of on floors 6 and 8, whereas floor 13 is benchmarked to floors 12 and 14. As floors are comprised by exactly the same apartments we manage to isolate the effects of the "lucky" and "unlucky" numbers. We have found a significantly negative effect of the 13th ("unlucky") floor on demand for apartments in new apartment houses, but no significant positive effect of the 7th ("lucky") floor. Possible implications of this result and directions for future research are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Elena B. Pokryshevskaya & Evgeny A. Antipov, 2015. "A study of numerological superstitions in the apartments market," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 35(1), pages 83-88.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-15-00126
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2015/Volume35/EB-15-V35-I1-P9.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Johnson, Noel D. & Nye, John V.C., 2011. "Does fortune favor dragons?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(1-2), pages 85-97, April.
    2. Steven C. Bourassa & Vincent S. Peng, 1999. "Hedonic Prices and House Numbers: The Influence of Feng Shui," International Real Estate Review, Global Social Science Institute, vol. 2(1), pages 79-93.
    3. Nicole M. Fortin & Andrew J. Hill & Jeff Huang, 2014. "Superstition In The Housing Market," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(3), pages 974-993, July.
    4. Hideo Akabayashi, 2008. "Lives of the Firehorse Cohort: What the Statistics Show," Japanese Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(3), pages 34-54.
    5. Shum, Matthew & Sun, Wei & Ye, Guangliang, 2014. "Superstition and “lucky” apartments: Evidence from transaction-level data," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 109-117.
    6. Ka-Fu Wong & Linda Yung, 2005. "Do Dragons Have Better Fate?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 43(3), pages 689-697, July.
    7. Bennett, James T & Barth, James R, 1973. "Astronomics: A New Approach to Economics?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(6), pages 1473-1475, Nov.-Dec..
    8. Thomas Kramer & Lauren Block, 2008. "Conscious and Nonconscious Components of Superstitious Beliefs in Judgment and Decision Making," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 34(6), pages 783-793, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wu, Nan & Zhang, Xiaomeng & Zhou, Wenyu, 2023. "The impacts of superstition on risk preferences and beliefs: Evidence from the Chinese zodiac year," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    2. Woei-Chyuan Wong & Nur Adiana Hiau Abdullah & Hock-Eam Lim, 2019. "The Value Of Chinese Superstitions In Malaysia: Evidence From Car Plate Auctioning," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 64(01), pages 115-137, March.
    3. Fanhui Meng & Haoming Sun & Jiarong Xie & Chengjun Wang & Jiajing Wu & Yanqing Hu, 2021. "Preference for Number of Friends in Online Social Networks," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-13, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:cup:judgdm:v:10:y:2015:i:6:p:590-592 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Evgeny A. Antipov & Elena B. Pokryshevskaya, 2015. "Are buyers of apartments superstitious? Evidence from the Russian real estate market," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 10(6), pages 590-592, November.
    3. Dmitry Burakov, 2018. "Do discounts mitigate numerological superstitions? Evidence from the Russian real estate market," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 13(5), pages 467-470, September.
    4. repec:cup:judgdm:v:13:y:2018:i:5:p:467-470 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Bhattacharya, Haimanti & Dugar, Subhasish, 2022. "Business norm versus norm-nudge as a contract-enforcing mechanism: Evidence from a real marketplace," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    6. Jan Fidrmuc & J. D. Tena, 2015. "Friday the 13th: The Empirics of Bad Luck," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(3), pages 317-334, August.
    7. Tao Chen, 2018. "Dragon CEOs and Firm Value," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 51(3), pages 382-395, September.
    8. Invernizzi, Giovanna M. & Miller, Joshua B. & Coen, Tommaso & Dufwenberg, Martin & Oliveira, Luiz Edgard R., 2021. "Tra i Leoni: Revealing the preferences behind a superstition," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    9. Shum, Matthew & Sun, Wei & Ye, Guangliang, 2014. "Superstition and “lucky” apartments: Evidence from transaction-level data," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 109-117.
    10. Huang, Cheng & Zhang, Shiying & Zhao, Qingguo & Lin, Yan, 2021. "Dragon year superstition, birth timing, and neonatal health outcomes," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    11. Wen-Chieh Wu & Yu-Chun Ma & Steven C. Bourassa, 2018. "Folk Customs and Home Improvement Decisions," International Real Estate Review, Global Social Science Institute, vol. 21(3), pages 317-341.
    12. Ng, Travis & Chong, Terence & Du, Xin, 2010. "The value of superstitions," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 293-309, June.
    13. Woei-Chyuan Wong & Nur Adiana Hiau Abdullah & Hock-Eam Lim, 2019. "The Value Of Chinese Superstitions In Malaysia: Evidence From Car Plate Auctioning," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 64(01), pages 115-137, March.
    14. Maria De Paola & Francesca Gioia & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2013. "Overconfidence, Omens And Emotions: Results From A Field Experiment," Working Papers 201303, Università della Calabria, Dipartimento di Economia, Statistica e Finanza "Giovanni Anania" - DESF.
    15. Cheng Huang & Xiaojing Ma & Shiying Zhang & Qingguo Zhao, 2020. "Numerological preferences, timing of births and the long-term effect on schooling," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(2), pages 531-554, April.
    16. Nicole M. Fortin & Andrew J. Hill & Jeff Huang, 2014. "Superstition In The Housing Market," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(3), pages 974-993, July.
    17. Brad R. Humphreys & Adam Nowak & Yang Zhou, 2016. "Cultural Superstitions and Residential Real Estate Prices: Transaction-level Evidence from the US Housing Market," Working Papers 16-27, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    18. Bai, Min & Xu, Limin & Yu, Chia-Feng (Jeffrey) & Zurbruegg, Ralf, 2020. "Superstition and stock price crash risk," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    19. repec:cup:judgdm:v:11:y:2016:i:3:p:243-259 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Tong V. Wang & Rogier J. D. Potter van Loon & Martijn J. van den Assem & Dennie van Dolder, 2016. "Number preferences in lotteries," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 11(3), pages 243-259, May.
    21. Vladimir A. Pastukhov & Nikolay S. Kliman & Dmitry S. Alekseev, 2018. "Tendencies of Interaction between Russian Universities and Companies Implementing Innovative Development Programs," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(1), pages 686-707.
    22. Agarwal, Sumit & He, Jia & Liu, Haoming & Png, I. P. L. & Sing, Tien Foo & Wong, Wei-Kang, 2016. "Superstition, Conspicuous Spending, and Housing Markets: Evidence from Singapore," IZA Discussion Papers 9899, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    23. De Paola, Maria & Gioia, Francesca & Scoppa, Vincenzo, 2014. "Overconfidence, omens and gender heterogeneity: Results from a field experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 237-252.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    superstitions; residential real estate; lucky number; unlucky number; Wilcoxon test;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R2 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis
    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-15-00126. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.