2008美国之后，下一个房地产泡沫会在哪个国家破裂？

    不幸的是，这并不是经济学家们第一次警告全球范围内的房价泡沫。比方说，加拿大房价上涨已经让当地官员们担忧了好几年。问题是，在资产泡沫积累的过程当中，很难找到办法解决。监管机构可以努力确保信贷不过于宽松，同时收紧借贷标准，但有些时候，泡沫趋势可以压倒这些措施。消除泡沫唯一可靠的方式就是让它破裂，但这个办法可能给那些经济不那么好的国家带来严重的后果。

    或许，一个更值得探讨、同时也有助于政策制定者避开未来房地产泡沫的问题是，为什么房地产领域目前存在这么多正在发酵的泡沫？或许，我们可以参照一下经济学家托马斯•皮凯蒂的畅销书《21世纪资本论》（Capital in the 21st Century）所引发的争论。

    皮凯蒂的这本书宣称，不断扩大的收入不平等是资本主义体系的核心特点，因为资本回报率总是高于经济增长率。结果是，资本变得更加有价值，而较低的经济增速不足以让那些不拥有资本（比如房地产或金融资产）的人变得更加富有。最近几周，皮凯蒂论点的批评人士指出，他的论据有瑕疵，因为过去20年资本价值的增长大部分来自全球范围内的房地产价值增长。如果正如以上分析所指出的那也难怪，房地产被高估，那么，皮凯蒂宣称的资本回报正在增长可能就是假象。

    但如果房地产没有被高估呢？如果经济发生了一些变化，造成房地产升值呢？越来越多的研究正是这么认为的：随着发达国家经济对农业和制造业的依赖程度降低，对于依托宝贵创意、紧密合作的创新行业的依赖程度上升，土地再一次变得非常重要。

    我们可以，这一幕正在美国上演：旧金山、哥伦比亚特区、纽约和其他创新城市的房租正在随同工资一起高涨。在大多数高产劳动者看到房地产价值上涨的环境中，人们想买房、而不是租房不无道理。那么，什么力量会阻止这个价格上涨的趋势呢？

    有这样的解释，大家有理由相信，最近发达国家房地产价格上涨既有理性因素（经济发展使得位置变得更为重要），也有非理性因素（人们认为没有什么能阻止本轮上涨行情）。很难说哪一个力量是推高房地产价格的更大因素，但价格过去怎么样并不意味着它未来就会继续这样。

    换句话说，或许我们认为的泡沫实际上就是房地产市场在告诉我们，决策层需要在经济最具活力的地区增加住房供应。（财富中文网）

    Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time that economists have warned of housing bubbles around the world. Price increases in Canada have had officials worried for years, for instance. The problem is, it’s difficult to do anything about a growing asset bubble while it’s in progress. Regulators can work to make sure that credit isn’t too widely available and lending standards are tightened, but sometimes the logic of a bubble can overcome even these measures. The only reliable way to eliminate a bubble is to let it burst, which could lead to terrible consequences for the country’s economies in question.

    Perhaps a more interesting question, and one that could help policy makers avoid these real estate bubbles in the future, is why are there so many bubbles growing in this particular asset right now? For that it is useful to turn to the recent debate over economist Thomas Piketty’s best-selling Capital in the 21st Century.

    Piketty’s book alleges that growing income inequality is a central feature of capitalist systems, because the returns to capital will almost always be higher then economic growth. The result is that capital becomes ever more valuable, while there is not enough economic growth to make richer those who don’t own capital (like real estate or financial assets). Critics of economist Thomas Piketty’s thesis have argued in recent weeks that his argument is flawed because most of the run up in value of capital in the past 20 years is due to the run up in the value of real estate around the world. If real estate is overvalued, as the analysis above suggests, then Piketty’s claim that the return on capital is growing could be an illusion.

    But what if real estate isn’t overvalued? What if there is something happening in the economy that’s causing real estate to become more valuable? A growing body of research is arguing just that: As developed economies become less reliant on agriculture and manufacturing, and more reliant on creative industries that thrive on close collaboration for a generation of valuable ideas, land is becoming once again very important.

    We can see this happening in the U.S., where rents in cities like San Francisco, Washington D.C., New York and other innovative cities are skyrocketing along with salaries. In an environment where the most productive workers are seeing rapidly rising property values, it makes sense that people would want to buy a home rather than rent. After all, what force is going to stop this trend in rising prices?

    With this explanation, you have reason to believe that the recent run up in real estate prices in developed countries has both a rational component (the evolution of the economy is making location more important) and an irrational component (people think that nothing will stop this trend). It’s difficult to say which force could be a bigger factor pushing real estate prices higher, but it’s important to realize that just because prices have always behaved a certain way in the past doesn’t mean it will continue that way in the future.

    In other words, perhaps what we think is a bubble is really just the real estate market telling us that policy makers need to do more to allow more housing supply to be built where economies are most dynamic.