Dennis R. Capozza

The stochastic city

Abstract This paper analyzes a simple model of an urban area with growth and uncertainty. Household income, rents, and prices for land follow stochastic processes. Even though investors are risk neutral, uncertainty affects both land rents and land prices in equilibrium because the conversion of land from agricultural to urban use is irreversible. Growth, on the other hand, affects urban and agricultural land prices but not the level of rents. We show that uncertainty (i) delays the conversion of land from agricultural to urban use, (ii) imparts an option value to agricultural land, (iii) causes land at the boundary to sell for more than its opportunity cost in other uses, and (iv) reduces equilibrium city size.

Dividend Policy and Cash Flow Uncertainty

We explore the role of expected cash flow volatility as a determinant of dividend policy both theoretically and empirically. Our simple one period model demonstrates that, given the existence of a stock-price penalty associated with dividend cuts, managers rationally pay out lower levels of dividends when future cash flows are less certain. The empirical results use a sample of REITS from 1985-1992 and confirm that payout ratios are lower for firms with higher expected cash flow volatility as measured by leverage, size and property level diversification. These results are consistent with information-based explanations of dividend policy but not with agency cost theories.

Focus, Transparency and Value: The REIT Evidence

We trace the effects of corporate focus by examining the relationships among focus, cash flows and firm value. In contrast to past studies that examine the effects of diversifying across SIC-code-defined industries, we show that diversification, even within a single industry, reduces value. Our evidence, drawn from a panel of real estate investment trusts, indicates that this reduction is not due to poor managerial performance. Project-level cash flows are actually higher for less focused firms. However, these gains are offset by higher management, administrative and interest expenses. Thus, the corporate cash flows available to shareholders are not related to focus. Finally, we provide empirical evidence that links the effect of focus on value to informational asymmetries which cause the equity of diversified firms to be less liquid. We attribute some of the effect of focus on the cost of both debt and equity to informational asymmetries or transparency costs. Copyright American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.

Expectations, Efficiency, and Euphoria in the Housing Market

This paper studies expectations of capital appreciation in the housing market. We show that expectations impounded in the rent/price ratio at the beginning of the decade successfully predict appreciation rates, but only if we first control for cross-sectional differences in the quality of rental versus owner-occupied housing. We also demonstrate that observed rent/price ratios contain a disequilibrium component that also has power to forecast subsequent appreciation rates. Finally, we provide evidence consistent with euphoria: participants in housing markets appear to overreact to income growth.

Valuing long-term leases: The option to redevelop

Long-term leases on property are popular in many jurisdictions, both with private vendors and with local governments who want to retain future control over land use. A puzzling issue for vendors and purchasers has been how to value these leased properties relative to fee-simple properties. Simple present-value models suggest that there should be little difference between the price of fee-simple land and the price of long-term leases. Transaction prices in Canada on 80-year to 100-year residential leases, however, are 20 percent to 40 percent less than comparable fee-simple properties. We outline a financial model for valuing leased properties. The value of the option to upgrade or redevelop is considered. We show that the large part of the discount of leased properties from fee-simple properties can be explained by this option to redevelop.

Mortgage Default in Local Markets

Using recent theoretical advances and an extensive panel data set on metropolitan areas, this study provides new tests of the contingent claims based model of default. The empirical modeling incorporates a full complement of variables that permit direct tests of the options-based model including the conditional effects of age and rent-to-price ratios. The role of transaction costs and trigger events is examined, and the results confirm the importance of both. The effects of aggregation and short sample periods are explored and demonstrated to affect inference in studies of mortgage default. Copyright American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.

The Value of Liquidity

In this study, we examine the relationship between the liquidity of equity and its market value. We find that creating liquid equity claims on relatively illiquid property assets increases value by 12–22%. However, the fixed costs associated with creating these claims offset these liquidity gains for pools of assets below

Treasury Bill Pricing in the Spot and Futures Markets

100 million. We also estimate that the liquidity of individual properties adds 16% to their value relative to a notional nontradable property asset. Managers can enhance the liquidity of equity and, therefore, the benefits of securitization by increasing size, focus, and institutional ownership.

Inside Ownership, Risk Sharing and Tobin's q‐Ratios: Evidence from REITs

STUDIES of the term structure of interest rates have a long tradition in the literature of finance and economics. Two prominent examples are Roll (1970) and Nelson (1971).1 More recently, a parallel literature has evolved on the pricing of commodity contracts, spawned by the work of Dusak (1973) and Black (1976). With the advent of futures trading in Treasury bills on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) the direct relationship between the theory of the term structure of interest rates and the theory of commodity contract pricing has become apparent. Since arbitrage is possible between the spot and futures markets, appropriately defined returns in both markets should be identical. In this paper we compare the returns in the spot and futures markets over the first 30 months of trading in the CME Treasury bill futures market. Surprisingly, we find that rather large deviations between returns in the two markets have persisted throughout the sample period, i.e., the one price law is violated. For this result to be obtained, arbitrage costs must be large, differential risk must exist, or traders in the two markets must be distinct non-overlapping groups. In the next section an arbitrage condition connecting the two markets is derived. The condition specifies the relationship between returns in the spot and futures markets under the assumption of a perfect capital market. The third section presents the data and demonstrates that the arbitrage condition has not been satisfied. The fourth section offers a possible explanation for the failure of the arbitrage condition. The paper concludes with a summary of the results.

Pricing under Spatial Competition and Spatial Monopoly: Reply

We investigate relations among inside ownership, managerial expenses, risk sharing and equity valuations. Our engine of analysis—Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)—provides a unique and rich framework for analysis since we can calculate extremely accurate measures of asset replacement costs, and hence relative valuation (Tobins q). Further, the nature of the financial statements allows us to examine the impact of insider ownership on agency costs since we can accurately measure the costs of the entire management team. Our results show that firms with greater insider holdings tend to invest in assets with lower systematic risk and use less debt in their capital structure. At the same time, managerial expenses are lower as inside ownership increases. Finally, higher levels of insider ownership are associated with higher relative valuation as measured by both higher premiums to net asset value and higher multiples of cash flows. The results have implications for the design of optimal management contracts for both REITs and firms in general.