Speaker: 王龙 (Long Wang)

Title: Housing Wealth and Online Consumer Behavior: Evidence from the Xiong'an New Area in China

Schedule: March 29, Wed 1:30-3:00

Location: 诚明楼（Chengming Hall） RM 315 

 

Introduction: 王龙，复旦大学经济学院助理教授，新加坡国立大学房地产金融博士（2018），西南财经大学经济学硕士（2013），西南财经大学应用数学学士（2010）。加入复旦大学经济学院前，王龙博士曾于2018.06-2022.06在上海科技大学创业与管理学院担任助理教授。王龙博士的研究领域为城市经济学、房地产金融学、应用微观经济学及中国经济。王龙博士的论文发表于国际著名期刊 Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Urban Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Real Estate Economics。

 

Abstract: We provide new evidence on the causal effects of housing wealth on consumer behavior. To overcome the empirical challenge of non-random housing wealth changes, we exploit the unexpected announcement of China's newest national-level new area - Xiong'an New Area - on April 1, 2017 as an exogenous shock to housing prices. We use a proprietary dataset of individual-level online consumption from the largest e-commerce company in China to measure various aspects of consumer behavior, such as consumption patterns, purchase hesitation, tolerance to unsatisfied products, and shirking (proxied by making online purchases during work hours). We explore the underlying mechanisms through which the housing shock affects consumer behavior; in particular, we attempt to disentangle the realizable and unrealizable housing wealth effects.