人口老化對於亞洲新興市場房價的影響

Abstract

人口老化是否會對於房價造成負面衝擊？這個問題是家戶、不動產業者、學者以及政府官員所關心的議題。近年來，越來越多的文獻探討房價以及人口老化程度之間的關係。前人的研究已經證明，已開發國家的人口老化現象會造成未來房地產價格的下降。背後的理論基礎源自於Modigliani and Brumberg (1954)以及 Ando and Modigliani (1963)所提出的「生命周期假說」(Life Cycle Hypothesis)，說明投資人在工作年齡的儲蓄是用來提供退休時所需，而退休後的投資人會逐漸消耗先前累積的金融資產。因此，當一個社會老年人口相對於工作人口的比例上升時，勢必會使得資產市場產生超額供給，進一步造成價格下跌的狀況。 新興經濟體近來成長快速，但同時社會內部也面臨人口老化的問題。本文試著以亞洲八個新興經濟體作為樣本，利用1988年至2011年，共24年的資料，探討新興國家人口老化與房價之間的關係。利用Takats (2010)的方法，以扶老比(Old Age Dependency Ratio)當作人口老化的代理變數，總人口當作另一個人口因素。在控制其他總體經濟變數包括人均GDP、失業率、外國直接投資、土地供給以及實質利率之下，本研究發現扶老比與實質房價有顯著負向的影響；總人口與實質房價則有顯著正向的影響，說明人口因素與房價之間存在顯著關連性。此研究結果在不同的代理變數以及估計方法之下，均呈現穩健的結果。除此之外，經濟自由度高以及較富裕的國家享有一定程度的房市紅利，可減緩部份人口老化所帶來的負面衝擊。 最後，本研究利用聯合國人口預測(United Nation Population Prospectus)的資料，預估未來25年人口結構變動對於房價的邊際影響。在八個樣本國家中，預估平均每年將下跌1.34個百分點，中國大陸房價下跌幅度最大，香港則沒有明顯的影響。此一推估結果對於目前正享受房市紅利的亞洲經濟體，可謂是一警訊，值得投資人以及不動產相關政策執行者的注意。

There are increasing studies examining the relationship between population aging trend and real estate prices. The theoretical background is “Life Cycle Hypothesis” proposed by Modigliani and Brumberg (1954), and Ando and Modigliani (1963). The hypothesis argues that “Aging Phenomenon” will cause the retired generations to sell more assets than the assets purchased by working generations. This thus will result in asset market having excess supply and inevitably dampening assets prices. Since most Asian economies are facing aging issues, yet on the other hand, their economies are also growing, this paper will shed light on whether aging will affect real asset prices in Asia. Unlike previous studies which focused on developed economies, this paper investigates the impact of aging on real house prices in eight Asian economies during 1988-2011. I apply Takats (2010) to find out the link between growth rate of old age dependency ratio and the return of real house prices in China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. This paper examines that population aging will negatively affect real house prices, and total population will positively affect real house prices, after controlling several macroeconomic factors, including GDP per capita, unemployment rate, real interest rate, foreign direct investment and land supply index. The result is quite robust owing to several measures of aging and different estimation methods. I also find that there will be positive house price premiums for wealthier economies with higher degree of economic freedom and better institutional environment. This will help mitigate the downside influence on real house prices. Moreover, this paper uses data from UN Population Prospectus to project the potential decline in house prices in next 25 years. Among eight sample countries, the house price is expected to fall on average about 1.34 percent annually. Specifically, the estimated partial aging effect on house prices is the severest in China, about -4.14 percent per annum; the house price in Hong Kong, on the other hand, is unaffected by population aging. Given the rapid surge of economic growth in emerging Asia, we prove empirically that aging does negatively affect real house prices. This negative relationship would not only help investors to take account of the potential country-specific demographic risk, but also warn policy makers to reconsider their population policy.