The Spillover Effects of Public Attention and Real Estate Market: A Case Study from Shanghai, China

Abstract

The real estate industry is closely linked to the national economy, and fluctuations in house prices have long been a major focus of public attention. This study explores the relationship between public attention and the real estate market, using public attention as a focal point. It systematically explains how public attention affects investment decisions in real estate. Taking Shanghai as a case, this study empirically examines the dynamic time-varying relationship between public attention and house prices, sales, investment and floor space completed by building a Time-Varying Parameter Vector Autoregression (TVP-VAR) model with data from 2011 to 2024.The research shows that the spillover index of house prices on public attention is positive and house prices acting as the sender of the shock, with rising house prices boost public attention. Conversely, the spillover index of public attention on house prices is negative, with public attention acting as the receiver of the shock. Based on the empirical results, it is recommended to incorporate public attention into the real estate market monitoring system, observe the real estate industry using multiple indicators, and enhance the regulation of online media to ensure policy transparency.