I am William. I obtained my Ph.D. from the University of Hong Kong (HKU). Prior to my Ph.D. degree, I worked as an economist in HKSAR Government and the Asia Pacific Regional Research Assistant Manager at CBRE during the year 2008 to 2013.  I am a chartered surveyor of The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (MRICS).

 

Now I am a Lecturer in Property at the University of Auckland. My primary research area is real estate economics. My research interests cover a wide range of issues in the real estate market, including but not limited to the commercial property market, institutional analysis, lease contracts and housing policy. In my spare time, I enjoy traveling, watching movies and wine tasting. The research I am now undertaking is an interdisciplinary one, uniting two strands of significant real estate and urban economics inquiries: access of subsidized homeownership for building wealth among historically disadvantaged groups and residential mobility among low-income families.

 

In my dissertation, “Subsidized homeownership and residential mobility: Theory and Evidence from Hong Kong,” I argue that the subsidized homeownership is a tie-in between housing subsidies and housing units. A stronger tie will increase the opportunity cost of households to move, thereby generating a “spatial lock-in effect” among households. This, in turn, brings up a fundamental policy question: is subsidized housing an end to promote homeownership per se (i.e., for which low liquidity is intended) or a means to enable the lower income group to move to private housing in future (i.e., for which high liquidity is intended)? My effort to unveil the interrelationships between subsidized homeownership and residential mobility should further illuminate the critical role of housing in a community and even the entire economy. 

 

My passion for research has also earned me a few scholarships and awards, such as Fulbright scholarship, Ronald Coase Institute fellowship, Li Po Chun Charitable Trust Fund Postgraduate Scholarship, Eric Lye Memorial Travelling Scholarship 2015-16, IPSA-NUS Methods School Grant Fellowship, and HKU Centenary Scholarship etc.  I also held academic appointments in other institutions: Research Fellow at The Ronald Coase Centre for Property Rights Research (RCCPRR) at HKU, Fulbright scholar at UCLA, and Lee Hysan Foundation scholar in Hong Kong.