Real Estate in Global Cities: Singapore and Hong Kong as Property States

Anne Haila
Additional contact information
Anne Haila: Department of Social Policy, PO Box 18 (Snellmaninkatu 10), 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland, haila@helsinki.fi

Urban Studies, 2000, vol. 37, issue 12, 2241-2256

Abstract: Land and buildings form a significant portion of the national wealth in most economies, but in Singapore and Hong Kong, two small city-states where land is scarce, real estate has an important role in the functioning of the whole economy. Transnational property and development companies are important players in Singapore and Hong Kong. They form an important part of the local stock market and have enjoyed considerable growth while providing substantial revenue for governments and wealth for individuals. Because of this important role, the paper redescribes Singapore and Hong Kong as property states, not rent-seeking economies as the term rent is usually used in discussing Asian capitalism. The importance of real estate, an immobile asset, is not only surprising in a global era defined in part by the mobility of capital, but also because in Singapore and Hong Kong land is publicly owned. The paper attempts to explain the anomaly by analysing the land allocation mechanisms in Singapore and Hong Kong. In spite of their similarities, real estate markets in Singapore and Hong Kong exhibit several differences, linked in turn to different policy options for their management.

Date: 2000
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/00420980020002797 (text/html)

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:sae:urbstu:v:37:y:2000:i:12:p:2241-2256

DOI: 10.1080/00420980020002797

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Urban Studies from Urban Studies Journal Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().