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This paper tests whether commercial real estate markets (both exchange-traded and non-exchange-traded) are integrated with stock markets using multifactor asset pricing models. The results support the hypothesis that the market for exchange-traded real estate companies, including REITs, is integrated with the market for exchange-traded (non-real-estate) stocks. Moreover, the degree of integration has significantly increased during the 1990s. However, when appraisal-based returns (adjusted for smoothing) are used to construct real estate portfolio returns, the results fail to support the integration hypothesis, although this may reflect the inability of these estimated private market returns to accurately proxy for commercial real estate returns. Interestingly, the growth rate in real per capita consumption is consistently priced in both commercial real estate markets and stock markets, whereas previous studies have found mixed evidence on the role of consumption in explaining "ex ante" stock returns. Copyright American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.

Using a database of more than 8,000 companies from 35 countries, we find that the value of corporate diversification is related to the level of capital market development, international integration, and legal systems. Our results suggest that the financial, legal, and regulatory environments each have an important influence on the value of diversification. Moreover, the optimal organizational structure and corporate governance may be very different for firms operating in emerging markets than it is for firms operating in more developed and internationally integrated countries.

This paper investigates the return performance of publicly traded real estate companies. The analysis spans the 1984 to 1999 time period and includes return data on over 600 companies in 28 countries. The return data reveal a substantial amount of variation in mean real estate returns and standard deviations across countries. Moreover, standard Treynor ratios, which scale country excess returns by the estimated βeta on the world wealth portfolio, also reveal substantial variation across countries in excess real estate returns per unit of systematic risk. However, when we estimate Jensen's alphas using both single and multifactor specifications, we detect little evidence of abnormal, risk-adjusted returns at the country level. We do, however, find evidence of a strong world-wide factor in international real estate returns. Furthermore, even after controlling for the effects of world-wide systematic risk, an orthogonalized country-specific factor is highly significant. This suggests that real estate securities may provide international diversification opportunities.

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