Author: Sotiris Tsolacos

Start Page: 197
End Page: 218
Volume: 18
Issue Number: 1
Year: 1999
Publication: Journal of Real Estate Research

Abstract: This study examines the cyclical pattern of retail property development in Great Britain. It develops and estimates an econometric model of the volume of new development starts for retail buildings. Within the theoretical framework proposed, a dynamic specification based on changes in real retail rents and total consumer spending appears to adequately capture the cyclical variation in retail development. Changes in the values of these variables induce new retail construction within two years and an Almon polynomial lag scheme best describes the dynamic distribution of their lagged effects. Investment market influences on retail building development at the national level are not established in this study. There is also some indication of a changing economic relationship between new retail development and retail rents after mid-1995, but this can only be confirmed by appropriate tests when additional observations become available.