IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/pacecr/v28y2023i1p142-164.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The market distortion effects of mortgage tightening and transaction taxes: Evidence from Hong Kong residential resale market

Author

Listed:
  • Lok Sang Ho
  • Mengna Hu
  • Xiangdong Wei
  • Gary Wai Chung Wong

Abstract

By using transaction‐level data, we study if two popular policies intended to cool an overheated housing market would serve their intended purposes. We found both mortgage tightening and Special Stamp Duties (SSD) actually led to higher starter home prices in Hong Kong. Mortgage tightening shifted the demand for bigger homes to that for smaller ones. The SSD that applies to resales within a specified period of the original purchase lowered turnover across the housing market. The decline in turnover is, as expected, sharpest for small flats, implying a dramatic shrinkage in second‐hand supply of such homes, driving their prices up. We also found transactions bunching as many homes are held till the SSD is no longer applicable, indicating lock‐in effects. Relative to those that are not subject to the SSD, the prices of properties subject to the levy are found to be lower by 6.8%.

Suggested Citation

  • Lok Sang Ho & Mengna Hu & Xiangdong Wei & Gary Wai Chung Wong, 2023. "The market distortion effects of mortgage tightening and transaction taxes: Evidence from Hong Kong residential resale market," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 142-164, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:pacecr:v:28:y:2023:i:1:p:142-164
    DOI: 10.1111/1468-0106.12389
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0106.12389
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1468-0106.12389?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Leung, Charles Ka Yui & Tse, Chung-Yi, 2017. "Flipping in the housing market," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 232-263.
    2. J. Allen Seward & Charles J. Delaney & Marc T. Smith, 1992. "An Empirical Analysis of Housing Price Appreciation in a Market Stratified by Size and Value of the Housing Stock," Journal of Real Estate Research, American Real Estate Society, vol. 7(2), pages 195-206.
    3. Cunningham, Christopher R. & Engelhardt, Gary V., 2008. "Housing capital-gains taxation and homeowner mobility: Evidence from the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 803-815, May.
    4. Wojciech Kopczuk & David Munroe, 2015. "Mansion Tax: The Effect of Transfer Taxes on the Residential Real Estate Market," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 7(2), pages 214-257, May.
    5. Wheaton, William C, 1990. "Vacancy, Search, and Prices in a Housing Market Matching Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(6), pages 1270-1292, December.
    6. Agarwal, Sumit & Li, Keyang & Qin, Yu & Wu, Jing & Yan, Jubo, 2020. "Tax evasion, capital gains taxes, and the housing market," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    7. Mr. Ivo Krznar & Mr. James Morsink, 2014. "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: Macroprudential Tools at Work in Canada," IMF Working Papers 2014/083, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Xian Zheng, 2015. "Expectation, volatility and liquidity in the housing market," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(37), pages 4020-4035, August.
    9. Montalvo, José G. & Piolatto, Amedeo & Raya, Josep, 2020. "Transaction-tax evasion in the housing market," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    10. Besley, Timothy & Meads, Neil & Surico, Paolo, 2014. "The incidence of transaction taxes: Evidence from a stamp duty holiday," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 61-70.
    11. Jeremy C. Stein, 1995. "Prices and Trading Volume in the Housing Market: A Model with Down-Payment Effects," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(2), pages 379-406.
    12. Leung, Charles, 2004. "Macroeconomics and housing: a review of the literature," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 249-267, December.
    13. David Genesove & Christopher Mayer, 2001. "Loss Aversion and Seller Behavior: Evidence from the Housing Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1233-1260.
    14. François Ortalo-Magné & Sven Rady, 2006. "Housing Market Dynamics: On the Contribution of Income Shocks and Credit Constraints ," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(2), pages 459-485.
    15. Barton A. Smith & William P. Tesarek, 1991. "House Prices and Regional Real Estate Cycles: Market Adjustments in Houston," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 19(3), pages 396-416, September.
    16. Lok Sang Ho & Gary Wong, 2008. "Nexus Between Housing And The Macro Economy: The Hong Kong Case," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(2), pages 223-239, May.
    17. Christopher J. Mayer, 1993. "Taxes, income distribution, and the real estate cycle: why all houses do not appreciate at the same rate," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue May, pages 39-50.
    18. Yuming Fu & Wenlan Qian & Bernard Yeung, 2016. "Speculative Investors and Transactions Tax: Evidence from the Housing Market," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(11), pages 3254-3270, November.
    19. Charles Leung & Youngman Leong & Siu Wong, 2006. "Housing Price Dispersion: An Empirical Investigation," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 357-385, May.
    20. Michael Funke & Michael Paetz, 2018. "Dynamic Stochastic General EQUILIBRIUM ‐ BASED Assessment of Nonlinear Macroprudential Policies: Evidence from Hong Kong," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(4), pages 632-657, October.
    21. Katherine A. Kiel & Richard T. Carson, 1990. "An Examination of Systematic Differences in the Appreciation of Individual Housing Units," Journal of Real Estate Research, American Real Estate Society, vol. 5(3), pages 301-318.
    22. Lok Ho & Yue Ma & Donald Haurin, 2008. "Domino Effects Within a Housing Market: The Transmission of House Price Changes Across Quality Tiers," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 37(4), pages 299-316, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Charles Ka Yui Leung & Joe Cho Yiu Ng, 2018. "Macro Aspects of Housing," GRU Working Paper Series GRU_2018_016, City University of Hong Kong, Department of Economics and Finance, Global Research Unit.
    2. Lu Han & Chandler Lutz & Benjamin Sand & Derek Stacey, 2018. "Do Financial Constraints Cool a Housing Boom?," Working Papers 073, Toronto Metropolitan University, Department of Economics.
    3. Damianov, Damian S & Escobari, Diego, 2015. "Long-Run Equilibrium Shift and Short-Run Dynamics of U.S. Home Price Tiers during the Housing Bubble," MPRA Paper 65765, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Dietz, Robert D. & Haurin, Donald R., 2003. "The social and private micro-level consequences of homeownership," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 401-450, November.
    5. Charles Ka Yui Leung & Joe Cho Yiu Ng & Edward Tang, 2020. "Why is the Hong Kong Housing Market Unaffordable? Some Stylized Facts and Estimations," Globalization Institute Working Papers 380, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    6. François Ortalo-Magné & Sven Rady, 2006. "Housing Market Dynamics: On the Contribution of Income Shocks and Credit Constraints ," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(2), pages 459-485.
    7. Edward Chi Ho Tang & Charles Ka Yui Leung, 2024. "Icing on the cake: Can the Top-Floor Units serve as a status good and an investment simultaneously?," ISER Discussion Paper 1252, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    8. Gan, Li & Wang, Pengfei & Zhang, Qinghua, 2018. "Market thickness and the impact of unemployment on housing market outcomes," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 27-49.
    9. Li, Qiang & Nong, Huifu, 2022. "A closer look at Chinese housing market: Measuring intra-city submarket connectedness in Shanghai and Guangzhou," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    10. Charles Ka Yui Leung & Jun Zhang, 2011. ""Fire Sales" in Housing Market: Is the House- Search Process Similar to a Theme Park Visit?," International Real Estate Review, Global Social Science Institute, vol. 14(3), pages 311-329.
    11. de Wit, Erik R. & Englund, Peter & Francke, Marc K., 2013. "Price and transaction volume in the Dutch housing market," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 220-241.
    12. Andrew Benito, 2006. "How does the down-payment constraint affect the UK housing market?," Bank of England working papers 294, Bank of England.
    13. L. Rachel Ngai & Silvana Tenreyro, 2014. "Hot and Cold Seasons in the Housing Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(12), pages 3991-4026, December.
    14. Suarez, Javier & Ceron, Jose A., 2006. "Hot and Cold Housing Markets: International Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 5411, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Eric Smith & Zoe Xie & Lei Fang, 2022. "The Short and the Long of It: Stock-Flow Matching in the US Housing Market," CESifo Working Paper Series 10035, CESifo.
    16. Eerola, Essi & Määttänen, Niku, 2013. "Matching in the housing market with risk aversion and savings," ETLA Working Papers 3, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    17. Steven C. Bourassa & Donald R. Haurin & Jessica L. Haurin & Martin Hoesli & Jian Sun, 2009. "House Price Changes and Idiosyncratic Risk: The Impact of Property Characteristics," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 37(2), pages 259-278, June.
    18. Gabrovski, Miroslav & Ortego-Marti, Victor, 2019. "The cyclical behavior of the Beveridge Curve in the housing market," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 361-381.
    19. Diao, Mi & Fan, Yi & Sing, Tien Foo, 2021. "Rational pricing responses of developers to supply shocks: Evidence from Singapore," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 802-815.
    20. Elliot Anenberg & Patrick Bayer, 2020. "Endogenous Sources Of Volatility In Housing Markets: The Joint Buyer–Seller Problem," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 61(3), pages 1195-1228, August.

    More about this item

    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:bla:pacecr:v:28:y:2023:i:1:p:142-164. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1361-374X .

    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.