IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jcecon/v42y2014i1p109-117.html

Superstition and “lucky” apartments: Evidence from transaction-level data

Author

Listed:
  • Shum, Matthew
  • Sun, Wei
  • Ye, Guangliang

Abstract

Using a sample of apartment transactions during 2004–2006 in Chengdu, China, we investigate the impact of superstitions in the Chinese real estate market. Numerology forms an important component of Chinese superstitious lore, with the numbers 8 and 6 signifying good luck, and the number 4 bad luck. We find that secondhand apartments located on floors ending with “8” fetch, on average, a 235RMB higher price (per square meter) than on other floors. For newly constructed apartments, this price premium disappears due to uniform pricing of new housing units, but apartments on floors ending in an “8” are sold, on average, 6.9days faster than on other floors. Buyers who have a phone number containing more “8”’s are more likely to purchase apartments in a floor ending with “8”; this suggests that at least part of the price premium for “lucky” apartments arises from the buyers’ superstitious beliefs.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jcecon:v:42:y:2014:i:1:p:109-117
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jce.2013.10.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0147596713001297
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jce.2013.10.001?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Woo, Chi-Keung & Horowitz, Ira & Luk, Stephen & Lai, Aaron, 2008. "Willingness to pay and nuanced cultural cues: Evidence from Hong Kong's license-plate auction market," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 35-53, February.
    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. Woo, Chi-Keung & Kwok, Raymond H. F., 1994. "Vanity, superstition and auction price," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 389-395, April.
    4. Viard, V. Brian & Fu, Shihe, 2015. "The effect of Beijing's driving restrictions on pollution and economic activity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 98-115.
    5. Hideo Akabayashi, 2008. "Lives of the Firehorse Cohort: What the Statistics Show," The Japanese Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(3), pages 34-54.
    6. Ng, Travis & Chong, Terence & Du, Xin, 2010. "The value of superstitions," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 293-309, June.
    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. Ka-Fu Wong & Linda Yung, 2005. "Do Dragons Have Better Fate?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 43(3), pages 689-697, July.
    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. Roger, Patrick & D’Hondt, Catherine & Plotkina, Daria & Hoffmann, Arvid, 2022. "Number 19: Another Victim of the COVID‐19 Pandemic?," LIDAM Reprints LFIN 2022012, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain Finance (LFIN).
    2. Anderson, Michael L. & Lu, Fangwen & Zhang, Yiran & Yang, Jun & Qin, Ping, 2016. "Superstitions, street traffic, and subjective well-being," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 1-10.
    3. Bayer, Ya'akov M. & Ruffle, Bradley J. & Shtudiner, Zeev & Zultan, Ro'i, 2018. "Costly superstitious beliefs: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 30-43.
    4. Tang, Mingzhe & Coulson, N. Edward, 2017. "The impact of China's housing provident fund on homeownership, housing consumption and housing investment," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 25-37.
    5. Brad R. Humphreys & Adam Nowak & Yang Zhou, 2017. "Chinese Superstition and Real Estate Prices: Transaction-level Evidence from the US Housing Market," Working Papers 17-18, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    6. 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.
    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. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. 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).
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. Lan, Hao & Moreira, Fernando & Zhao, Sheng, 2023. "Can a house resale restriction policy curb speculation? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 841-859.
    16. 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.
    17. Ke, Wen-Chyan & Chen, Hueiling & Lin, Hsiou-Wei W. & Liu, Yo-Chia, 2017. "The impact of numerical superstition on the final digit of stock price," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 145-157.
    18. Kwong Wing Chau & Danika Wright & Ervi Liusman, 2018. "The cost of a lucky price," ERES eres2018_240, European Real Estate Society (ERES).
    19. Liu, Yun & Zhang, Yifei & Chen, Xin & Yang, Yuxin, 2021. "Superstition and farmers’ life insurance spending," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    20. Jan Fidrmuc & J. D. Tena, 2015. "Friday the 13th: The Empirics of Bad Luck," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(3), pages 317-334, August.
    21. 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).
    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. 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.
    24. Tao Chen & Andreas Karathanasopoulos & Stanley Iat-Meng Ko & Chia Chun Lo, 2020. "Lucky lots and unlucky investors," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 735-751, February.

    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. 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.
    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. 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.
    4. Ng, Travis & Chong, Terence & Du, Xin, 2010. "The value of superstitions," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 293-309, June.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. Brian A. Polin & Eyal Ben Isaac & Itzhak Aharon, 2021. "Patterns in manually selected numbers in the Israeli lottery," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 16(4), pages 1039-1059, July.
    9. Vinci Chow, 2019. "Predicting Auction Price of Vehicle License Plate with Deep Residual Learning," Papers 1910.04879, arXiv.org.
    10. 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.
    11. Vinci Chow, 2017. "Predicting Auction Price of Vehicle License Plate with Deep Recurrent Neural Network," Papers 1701.08711, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2019.
    12. Woo, Chi-Keung & Horowitz, Ira & Luk, Stephen & Lai, Aaron, 2008. "Willingness to pay and nuanced cultural cues: Evidence from Hong Kong's license-plate auction market," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 35-53, February.
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. Chui, Peter M.W. & Fong, Lawrence Hoc Nang & Ren, Jinjuan & Tam, Lewis H.K., 2022. "Anchoring effects in repeated auctions of homogeneous objects: Evidence from Macao," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    16. Han, SeungOh, 2024. "Price clustering on cryptocurrency order books at a US-based exchange," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    17. 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).
    18. Butler, Alexander W. & Carlin, Bruce I. & Crane, Alan D. & Liu, Boyang & Weston, James P., 2021. "The value of social status," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    19. 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).
    20. Jan Fidrmuc & J. D. Tena, 2015. "Friday the 13th: The Empirics of Bad Luck," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(3), pages 317-334, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:eee:jcecon:v:42:y:2014:i:1:p:109-117. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622864 .

    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.