Foreign Direct Investment and Housing Prices: Evidence from South Korea

Abstract

This paper examines the extent to which Chinese Foreign Direct Investment affect housing prices in South Korea. To identify the effect, we build an econometric model based on the assumption that the amount of housing investments made by the Chinese correlate with the amount of FDI from China to Korea and the share of Chinese residents in a given location. By analyzing housing transaction data, we find that the Chinese FDI accounts for 15.3% of the increase in housing prices between 2011 and 2016. The positive effect of Chinese FDI is particularly pronounced in Seoul and its surroundings, as well as Daegu.