Background and purpose of research
Japan after the mid-1980s and the United States after the Lehman shock in the late 2000s faced long-term economic stagnation with the occurrence and collapse of the real estate bubble. What kind of mechanism is there to explain the link between the dysfunction of the real estate market and the long-term stagnation of the economy as a whole?
To answer such questions, this research project will bring together researchers who are working on the front lines of various fields of economics to promote research. First, we will discover and maintain big data represented by land transaction data, including the bubble period in the 1980s, which was said to be the largest bubble in the 20th century, the collapse in the 1990s, and subsequent economic stagnation. Using such big data, the following problems will be clarified.
1) By clarifying the effect of real estate price fluctuations on households and firms and 2) real estate price, this research project will shed light on the relationship between dynamics and economy.
Method of study
This research answers the following questions in the process of real estate price fluctuations:
- What kind of transactions occurred between what kind of entities? What kind of overinvestment and distortion of resource allocation occurred?
- How did the behavior of households change?
- What kind of changes have been made to urban productivity or land use?
We will clarify the micro phenomena that accompany the changes in real estate prices.
Furthermore, through the clarification of such phenomena:
- How will the declining/aging population and the inflow of international funds affect the real estate market?
- Why does the growth rate as well as the production level not return to the original trend after the bubble burst?
We present a framework for analyzing the real estate market from the macro perspective.
Experts who are engaged in advanced research in each field will gather to promote research projects by dividing them into four groups to answer two questions.
- Clarification of the relationship between land use regulations and urban reorganization/real estate market.
- Relationship between real estate market and households/firms: Macro analysis of real estate market based on micro phenomena.
- Analysis of link between demographics and real estate prices and goods and services prices.
- Analysis of the impact of international financial flows on the real estate market.
Features of this research project
The uniqueness of this research is that it is excavates and maintains unique micro data, including the bubble period in the 1980s. The point is to collaborate not only with experts in economic fields such as macroeconomics, real estate economics, and financial theory, but also those in the field of data science. In this field, researchers active in fields specializing in urban engineering, who are strong in spatial analysis, and big data analysis, who are strong in machine learning, will participate.
By doing so, we will clarify the myths that have been unclear until now, such as the mechanism of bubble generation and collapse and the inefficiency of land use that occurred in the process. Moreover, it is possible to demonstrate the creativity of verifying the policy effects of the time afterwards.
The related research achievements in 2019 are as follows. With these studies as a starting point, we will continue to develop them.