Investigating the dynamics of, and interactions between, Shanghai office submarkets

The Shanghai office market has developed rapidly over the past two decades. As a consequence of this development, two, apparently distinct, office submarkets, Puxi and Pudong have developed in central Shanghai. This raises the issue as to whether the Shanghai office market can be viewed as a homogeneous entity or whether there is imperfect substitutability across office locations within the city. The latter case raises the possibility of the existence of office submarkets. In this paper, we examine intra-metropolitan rental dynamics in the Puxi and Pudong submarkets, identifying any interrelationships between these markets, and consider whether they form distinct office submarkets. We find no interaction between the two submarkets. Further, we find no evidence of lead--lag relationships between the two submarkets. Finally, when we test for convergence in rental performance between the two submarkets, the tests reveal that we can reject the null of no convergence.