Major
International Business
Second Major
Chinese
Advisor
Arthur Mead
Advisor Department
Economics
Date
12-2018
Keywords
China; Housing Market; Bubble; China Bubble
Abstract
I chose to study the housing market in China because of the dual-degree program in which I am enrolled at the University of Rhode Island. The Chinese Flagship Program is dedicated to making sure that American students are prepared to work in China once they graduate. Each student is required to have a dual degree, Chinese and a second major of their choice. I chose International Business given my interests in economics and China. I began this research project while I was enrolled in third level Chinese, a course in which students are given an honors research project that must be researched using Chinese sources and written completely in Chinese.
The topic for this research project came to me when I went to China and began to wonder if China was facing a potential housing crisis. There was clearly something “special” about China’s construction boom, and my project was aimed at learning about the Chinese housing market and comparing it to the market in the US. I did this by examining several factors that affect demand for housing including economic, demographic, cultural, and public policies and I looked specifically at housing markets in New York City and Shanghai.
The second phase of the project was to look more closely at the housing market to see if China is experiencing a housing bubble comparable to what we experienced in the US in the housing bubble that burst in 2007. The project discusses how economic and societal factors in China appear to be combining to produce a housing bubble. This discussion is provided in the historical context of other economic bubbles that have occurred, including the American housing bubble of the early 2000s.
The project concludes with some reflections on my experience in conducting the underlying research. The fact that the first phase of the project was undertaken during my sophomore year at URI has given me the ability to look back on my project to see how I could have expanded my initial work. Two extra years of study introduced me to different research strategies that allowed me to look deeper into the issue, as well as developing communications skills that helped me to present my research more clearly and concisely. Accordingly, my reflections at the end of this paper include additional research on this topic completed over the past year, along with thoughts on how I would alter my project if I were to do it again.
Overall, my goal for this paper is to help inform the reader about the housing market in China including a discussion of a housing bubble, as well as compare some aspects of the U.S. housing market to the Chinese housing market. I also hope that my reflections on this project will help illustrate how the Honors Program has assisted me in developing my research skills and can be used to help gauge the effectiveness of their program.