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Metropolitan House Prices In South Africa: Do They Converge?

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  • Philippe Burger
  • Lizelle Janse Van Rensburg

Abstract

The question this paper investigates is whether or not different metropolitan areas each constitute a separate housing market or whether or not there is a single South African housing market. Theory on the Law of One Price suggests that if products or geographic areas belong in the same market, their absolute prices must converge, so that their relative prices are stationary. By using cross‐sectional time series data of five metropolitan areas, the paper tests for the Law of One Price by applying the Im, Pesaran and Shin panel unit root test. The paper finds strong evidence of convergence in large middle‐segment house prices and weaker support for convergence in medium middle‐segment house prices. In addition, the paper finds no evidence for convergence in small middle‐segment house prices. This suggests the existence of a national market for large and possibly middle‐segment houses in metropolitan areas, but separate metropolitan markets for small middle‐segment houses. In addition, the paper estimates the speed of convergence and finds that large middle‐segment house prices converge within two to seven quarters, while the speed of convergence for medium middle‐segment house prices in three of the five areas is five to eight quarters.

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  • Philippe Burger & Lizelle Janse Van Rensburg, 2008. "Metropolitan House Prices In South Africa: Do They Converge?," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 76(2), pages 291-297, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:sajeco:v:76:y:2008:i:2:p:291-297
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1813-6982.2008.00190.x
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    Cited by:

    1. Tsangyao Chang & Tsung-Pao Wu & Rangan Gupta, 2015. "Are house prices in South Africa really nonstationary? Evidence from SPSM-based panel KSS test with a Fourier function," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(1), pages 32-53, January.
    2. Ryan Greenaway‐McGrevy & Arthur Grimes & Mark Holmes, 2019. "Two countries, sixteen cities, five thousand kilometres: How many housing markets?," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 98(1), pages 353-370, February.
    3. Aye, G.C. & Goswami, S. & Gupta, R., 2013. "Metropolitan House Prices In Regions of India: Do They Converge?," Regional and Sectoral Economic Studies, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 13(1), pages 135-144.
    4. Arthur Grimes & Mark Holmes, 2010. "New Zealand Housing Markets: Just a Bit-Player in the A-League?," Working Papers 10_07, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    5. Barros, Carlos Pestana & Gil-Alana, Luis A. & Payne, James E., 2012. "Comovements among U.S. state housing prices: Evidence from fractional cointegration," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 936-942.
    6. Holmes, Mark J. & Otero, Jesús & Panagiotidis, Theodore, 2011. "Investigating regional house price convergence in the United States: Evidence from a pair-wise approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 2369-2376.
    7. Rangan Gupta & Christophe André & Luis Gil-Alana, 2015. "Comovement in Euro area housing prices: A fractional cointegration approach," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(16), pages 3123-3143, December.
    8. Faik Bilgili, 2016. "City Price Convergence in Turkey with Structural Breaks," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 6(3), pages 933-941.
    9. Mehmet Balcilar & Abebe Beyene & Rangan Gupta & Monaheng Seleteng, 2013. "‘Ripple’ Effects in South African House Prices," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(5), pages 876-894, April.
    10. Sonali DAS , Rangan GUPTA & Patrick A. KAYA, 2010. "Convergence Of Metropolitan House Prices In South Africa: A Re-Examination Using Efficient Unit Root Tests," Applied Econometrics and International Development, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 10(1).
    11. Nicholas Apergis & Beatrice D. Simo-Kengne & Rangan Gupta, 2013. "The Long-Run Relationship between Consumption, House Prices and Stock Prices in South Africa: Evidence from Provincial-Level Data," Working Papers 201326, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    12. Nicholas Apergis & James Payne, 2012. "Convergence in U.S. house prices by state: evidence from the club convergence and clustering procedure," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 103-111, July.
    13. Goodness C. Aye & Samrat Goswami & Rangan Gupta, 2012. "Metropolitan House Prices In India: Do They Converge?," Working Papers 201220, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    14. Beatrice D. Simo-Kengne & Rangan Gupta & Manoel Bittencourt, 2013. "The Impact of House Prices on Consumption in South Africa: Evidence from Provincial-Level Panel VARs," Housing Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(8), pages 1133-1154, November.
    15. Das, Sonali & Gupta, Rangan & Kabundi, Alain, 2009. "Could we have predicted the recent downturn in the South African housing market?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 325-335, December.
    16. Rangan Gupta & Sonali Das, 2008. "Spatial Bayesian Methods Of Forecasting House Prices In Six Metropolitan Areas Of South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 76(2), pages 298-313, June.
    17. Nicholas Apergis & Beatrice D. Simo-Kengne & Rangan Gupta, 2015. "Convergence In Provincial-Level South African House Prices: Evidence From The Club Convergence And Clustering Procedure," Review of Urban & Regional Development Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 2-17, March.
    18. Gupta, Rangan & Jurgilas, Marius & Kabundi, Alain, 2010. "The effect of monetary policy on real house price growth in South Africa: A factor-augmented vector autoregression (FAVAR) approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 315-323, January.
    19. Dayong Zhang & Qiang Ji & Wan-Li Zhao & Nicholas J Horsewood, 2021. "Regional housing price dependency in the UK: A dynamic network approach," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(5), pages 1014-1031, April.

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