Modelling Use, Investment, and Development in the British Office Market

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Abstract
The authors provide an empirical investigation of office market dynamics and model the user, investment, and development elements of this market. They recognise explicitly that the user and investment markets in office property influence trends in development and that development activity in turn affects office use and investment. This theoretical premise suggests that an analysis of these separate components of the market can make a significant contribution to a fuller understanding of office market dynamics, including swings in development activity. In the European context, there is a lack of research on modelling the functional elements of the office market individually, although such modelling is more common in US studies. Furthermore, most quantitative empirical work lacks an examination of the investment market for property and its intertemporal effects on development activity. In this paper, the authors estimate econometric models for rents, capital values, and development activity in the national office market in Great Britain. The results establish the significant influence of demand-side economic forces in the user market and the importance of use and investment market signals in the determination of office building output. However, the findings also strongly suggest that the investment market needs to be explored in more detail in order to identify and document the nature of the forces which interact in this sector of the office market.