Pricing Efficiency and Bounded Rationality: Evidence Based on the Responses Surrounding GICS Real Estate Category Creation

Helen X. H. Bao (), Adam Brady and Ziyou Wang
Additional contact information
Helen X. H. Bao: University of Cambridge
Adam Brady: University of Cambridge
Ziyou Wang: University of Cambridge

International Real Estate Review, 2020, vol. 23, issue 1, 37-63

Abstract: We use the reclassification of the real estate stocks in the S&P 500 from the Financials sector as a natural experiment to test the co-existence of both market force and behavioural biases. By performing event studies on real estate investment trusts (REITs) included in the S&P 400, S&P 500, and S&P 600 indices on both the announcement and implementation dates, we investigate the impact of the reclassification of the real estate stocks in the S&P 500 from the Financials sector to the newly created Real Estate sector under the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) system. We set up four hypotheses to test if the identified reclassification effect is due to improved pricing efficiency or bounded rationality. The event studies confirm the presence of abnormal returns during the announcement of the new sector and the S&P implementation. The reclassification effect is the largest for large-cap real estate stocks that are included in the S&P 500 index. These abnormal returns are robust to various measures of statistical significance and variation of event windows. The creation of a real estate category in the GICS improves the pricing efficiency of real estate stocks, but also triggers framing effects among investors. The market is under the influence of both rational and irrational forces.

Keywords: Behavioural Bias; Framing; Sector Reclassification; Securitised Real Estate; REITs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L85 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.gssinst.org/irer/wp-content/uploads/20 ... ategory-Creation.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ire:issued:v:23:n:01:2020:p:37-63

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
Global Social Science Institute, 9200 Corporate Blvd., Suite 420 Rockville, MD 20850
https://www.gssinst.org/gssinst/index.html

Access Statistics for this article

International Real Estate Review is currently edited by Professor Sing Tien Foo and Professor Ko Wang

More articles in International Real Estate Review from Global Social Science Institute Global Social Science Institute, 9200 Corporate Blvd., Suite 420 Rockville, MD 20850.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by IRER Graduate Assistant/Webmaster ().