REP Research Roundup: July 2025
Department News
The Department of Real Estate and Planning is on LinkedIn! To keep up with the amazing work we do please follow us on LinkedIn.
Complete University Guide Ranking -
We are glad to announce that The Department of Real Estate and Planning have maintained our ranking at Number 1 place for studying Land & Property Management on the Complete University Guide. Land & Property Management studies the creation, management and enhancement of the world's physical assets.
New report led by Dr Emma Street and Victor Nicholls -
Funded by the Property Research Trust, this report offers rare industry insight and challenges the ‘red tape’ narrative. Instead, it demonstrates how UK property developers are taking a pragmatic and values-driven approach - aligning environmental goals with business strategy and market opportunity. Key takeaways from the research include:
• 71% of developers have short-term net-zero plans
• 55% conduct climate risk assessments
• 48% meet the new Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) target of 10%, and 19% exceed it
Read the full report here: https://hly.ac/4l6wBBv
PhD News
Conference Presentation -
- Aparna Das (2025) The Torn Hessian Fabric, Migrants, Political Society and Jute Mill Lands in Kolkata Metropolitan Area (KMA), West Bengal, India. Deindustrialisation and Politics of Our Time (DepPOT) Summer Institute, June 16-17, 2025, Nancy and Longwy, France
Supervisors: Claudia Murray and Angelique Chettiparamb
- Oliver Tannor (2025) Examining the social value of healthy placemaking in real estate asset portfolio management. European Real Estate Society, Athens University of Business and Economics, July 3rd, 2025.
Supervisors: Eamonn D’Arcy and Jorn Van de Wettering
Publications
Tian, Z., Zeng, C., Li, C. and Wu, Y. (2025) Peer effects of star-analysts’ departure: new evidence from China. Journal of Corporate Finance. (In Press)
Abstract
This paper examines how the departure of star analysts influences the performance of their non-star peers. Using manually collected data from China, we observe that non-star analysts enhance their forecast accuracy after a star analyst leaves. This effect is particularly pronounced when non-star analysts have previously worked within hierarchical teams or when the departing star analyst held significant internal resources within the brokerage. Additionally, the performance improvements are more substantial in environments with greater promotion opportunities and in brokerages characterized by a collective organizational culture. To establish causality, we leverage the suspension and subsequent reform of the star analyst voting system as an exogenous shock. A difference-in-difference (DID) analysis demonstrates that brokerages more affected by this shock exhibit larger improvements in analyst forecast accuracy. These findings offer new insights into the celebrity effect, highlighting how changes in team structure and internal competition influence analyst performance.
Kladakis, G. and Skouralis, A. (2025) Sovereign credit rating downgrades and Growth-at-Risk. Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money (in press)
Abstract
This paper examines whether sovereign credit rating changes are linked to increased future macroeconomic downside risks based on the Growth-at-Risk framework by Adrian et al. (2019). Our findings reveal that downgrades significantly increase tail risk by lowering the 5th percentile of four-quarters ahead GDP growth by 2.95 percentage points, whereas upgrades yield a smaller and inconsistent effect of 0.45 percentage points. Standard panel OLS results show a reduced impact of 1.11 percentage points on GDP growth following a downgrade, underscoring the importance of examining effects beyond the mean. Further analysis reveals an asymmetrical impact across quantiles and time horizons, with speculative-grade countries particularly vulnerable to downgrades. Downgrades from all major agencies affect tail risk, with Fitch having the largest negative impact, while only Moody’s upgrades have a significant effect. Moreover, our empirical evidence suggests that the effect of credit rating downgrades is, at least partially mitigated, by the adoption of post-GFC regulatory reforms, aligning with these policies’ aim to reduce reliance on CRAs and enhance financial stability. Lastly, our analysis identifies investment and sovereign bond spreads as key channels through which downgrades affect macroeconomic outcomes, however, only the latter is significantly associated with downside risks to GDP growth. Robustness tests that include endogeneity checks, additional controls, alternative CRA data and quantile regression methodology, confirm our findings.