ABSTRACT
I am interested in behavioural economics when I get flyers from real estate development projects (for example, Photos 5.1 and 5.2 on pages 64 and 65) near our campus which emphasized that the project was prime because it was near to the University of Hong Kong (or did until recently when these advertisements actually specified that it is because of the new MTR station at HKU). At first, I did not think anything of such statements. Then I realized something was a bit off. I understand the importance for some real estate projects of being near to traditional famous primary or secondary schools, as location makes the household part of the specific school-net that will help gain entrance to such desirable schools. But university’s entrance consideration is a whole different story. As far as I know, universities in Hong Kong do not really consider the applicant’s home address when recruiting students. If being near to the university does not really account for an advantage for secondary school children, why do these advertisements still emphasize that the project is near a scholarly institution? Would universities emit a certain aura to the atmosphere that will make people nearby more elegant and scholarly? Is the university neighbourhood safer? (It will be interesting to know the actual statistics, but, from my own experience, our conference room on campus has lost three overhead projectors in only two months!) If the answers to these are no, then I think people are being led to believe that the psychological impact of a good neighbourhood with the presence of a higher educational institution could be true, although it is also interesting to note that there are studies showing potential negative impacts on the housing market for being close to higher educational institutions (Vandegrift et al., 2012; Kashian and Rockwell, 2013)! This certainly echoes with our discussions above on the general perception of the importance of the immediate neighbourhood to our children’s development. The following photos were taken by the author from the promotional materials that belonged to a new housing development near the university. The marketing team was certainly well-aware of this importance of a good neighbourhood to homebuyers!
