Volatility interdependence in European real estate securities markets: Who is the most influential?

This paper aims to investigate the interdependence of daily conditional volatility in seven FTSE‐NAREIT‐EPRA European developed real estate securities markets – the United Kingdom, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland, from January 1990 to December 2011.

This paper employs the multivariate GARCH and the generalized VAR volatility spillover index methodologies.

The author finds that each of the seven European developed real estate securities markets is relatively endogenous and interacts well with the other markets. In particular, the French real estate securities market has the most dominant volatility impact on other markets over the full sample period. The introduction and implementation of the euro is associated with a moderate increase of the total volatility spillovers around the three‐year (January 1999‐January 2002) period among the sample markets. Moreover, these markets have experienced an increase in their volatility correlation, as well as becoming more open around the GFC period. Around this crisis period, the German real estate securities market emerges as the “volatility leader” in transmitting the conditional volatilities to other markets in the European region.

This is the first paper to examine whether each of the sample European real estate securities markets has influenced or has been more influenced by others from the conditional volatility spillover perspective in the context of economic globalization, monetary integration and financial crisis. Since international investors incorporate into their portfolio selections not only the return correlation structure but also the market volatility interaction, the results of this study can shed light on the extent to which investors can benefit from international real estate securities diversification in the European developed countries.