Sixth ReCapNet Conference at ZEW

China's housing boom, certification of green buildings, and the implications of increasing financial integration on national real estate cycles – these are some of the topics that 30 international scholars discussed at the sixth annual conference of the Leibniz research network "Real Estate Markets and Capital Markets" (ReCapNet). The conference took place at ZEW in Mannheim on October 24–25, 2014. In eleven talks on the two conference days, the participants presented and discussed hypotheses and research results concerning novel types of linkages between international real estate and capital markets, as well as their economic policy implications.

This year’s ReCapNet Conference was the first to feature a session solely devoted to Asian real estate markets. Yourong Wang, Beijing Central University of Finance and Economics, gave a lecture about the effectiveness of government interventions. She focused in particular on the question of how local home purchase restrictions have relaxed the recent home price appreciations in the megacity of Guangzhou. Seow Eng Ong, National University of Singapore, then showed how the returns of Singapore Real Estate Investment Trusts (S-REITs) developed after asset enhancement initiatives (AEIs) were announced. Both presentations clearly highlighted the growing importance of Asian real estate and capital markets for academic research as well as real estate business.

The 2014 ReCapNet Conference was yet another valuable contribution to scientific exchange and networking between scholars from the area of real estate and capital market research. Next year, ZEW will host the seventh ReCapNet conference in October 2015. The call for papers will be released in spring 2015.