I study how information and location shape decisions in housing and urban markets — where people buy, what they consume, and how prices respond.
My research sits at the intersection of real estate, urban and regional economics, and applied microeconomics. Recent work looks at the spillovers of place-based housing policy, the role of price information in housing wealth effects, and how publicity interacts with locational advantage in retail.
- PhDLondon School of Economics and Political Science
- MScLondon School of Economics and Political Science
- MASeoul National University
- BSSeoul National University
Publications
Working papers
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Do Images Matter? Editorial Photogrphs and the Demand Effect of Expert Reviews with H. S. (Zack) Bhan & T.J. Yoon
Expert reviews shape consumer demand for experience goods, but research has focused mostly on ratings and text. We examine a third component of the editorial package, the photographs, asking whether their visual content moderates a review's demand effect. Using a stacked difference-in-differences design on New York Times restaurant reviews (2009–2016), with demand measured by geo-coded taxi drop-offs near each restaurant, we report four findings. First, an NYT review raises nearby taxi drop-offs by 2.2 percent, sustained for at least 24 weeks. Second, the photographs' perceived dining appeal, measured by a generative-AI Willingness to Dine In (WTDI) score, moderates this effect: reviews with high-WTDI photographs generate increases of 3.0 percent, while low-WTDI photographs show no detectable response. Third, photographs featuring customers are associated with the largest demand effects of any content type, while the food effect, restaurant photography's conventional focus, attenuates as full controls are added. Fourth, the effective content varies by price: customer imagery predicts demand at lower-priced restaurants (social proof), while food and place imagery predict demand at higher-priced restaurants (experiential signaling). The findings reveal an unexamined component of how expert reviews move demand and show that AI-based visual assessments can predict revealed consumer behavior in the field.
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Spatially heterogeneous effects of publicity: Evidence from the restaurant industry in New York CityR&R, J. Econ. & Management Strategy
A traditional way to increase store visibility in the brick-and-mortar retail industry is to pick a location that grants a retail establishment the best visibility for a given budget. Yet recent years have witnessed increasing attention to “information visibility” in this industry because of the rapid growth in the use of information technologies. If the economic effects of information diffusion were homogeneous across locations, then it would become less optimal for retail entrepreneurs to choose traditionally favored locations. However, I find that diner responses to New York Times restaurant reviews, although significant on average, are insignificant unless the focal business is situated in a central location characterized by high customer or competitor density. These results indicate that publicity is likely to complement, but is not a substitute for, locational centrality. So for retailers offering non-tradable goods or services, an improving information environment is likely to make favored retail locations more favorable.
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Housing prices and consumption: The role of price informationR&R, Kyklos
The observed relationships between housing prices and consumption are highly inconsistent over time. By exploiting local newspaper contents in the U.S., I find that a greater number of newspaper articles conveying information on house prices is associated with more elastic household consumption with respect to regional housing prices. The regression results are statistically significant only for homeowners and only when a housing news article includes real estate terms in its headline. The findings suggest that the provision of house price information is a main source of observed housing wealth effects, highlighting the importance of information agents and information interventions in shaping household behaviors and economic decisions.
Work in progress
- Livable houses and investable houses: Housing market segmentation and differential market dynamics
- News-driven house price momentum
Teaching
- Real Estate Finance Sogang University
- Real Estate Economics Sogang University
- Seminar in Real Estate Studies Sogang University