Exploring Economic Factors to Enhance the Performance of Real Estate Investment Trusts in the Eastern European Region

ABSTRACT

This study explores the economic determinants that can improve the performance of real estate investment trusts (REITs) in Eastern European economies. Employing a cross-sectional autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) approach, the findings show that an improvement in dividend yield, net income, stock return, exchange rates, and size can improve the performance of REITs. However, leverage and interest rates adversely affect the performance of REITs. The study spotlights the crucial role standardized regulation can play in mitigating fragmentation in the real estate market, being capable of streamlining capital allocation and hence, offering notable advantages to REITs in smaller Eastern European states.

KEYWORDS:

• Eastern European economies
• investors capital
• net assets value
• REITs
• stock return

JEL CLASSFICATION:

• R
• R3

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the Deanship of Graduate Studies and Scientific Research, Taif University for funding this work.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the the authors would like to acknowledge the Deanship of Graduate Studies and Scientific Research, Taif University for funding this work.

Notes on contributors

Taiyi Zang

Taiyi Zang was born in Changchun, China. He received Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from Jilin University, Changchun, China (2015), M.Sc. degree in Management from Changchun University, Changchun, China (2019), and Ph.D. degree in Finance from Jilin University, Changchun, China (2024). He has been working in the School of Economics and Management at Changchun University of Technology, Changchun, China since June 2024. His research interests include real estate finance, behavioral finance, investor sentiment, and urban studies.

Imran Hanif

Imran Hanif is working as an Associate Professor at the Department of Economics, Government College University, Lahore, Pakistan. He has served as a research fellow at Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University, USA and has specialization in Public Economics, Energy and Resources Economics. He is also serving as Associate Editor in Nature and Elsevier Journals. He has guest-edited special issues of various journals and contributed to leading journals such as Economic Analysis and Policy, Journal of South Asian Development, Energy Policy and Renewable Energy. He has authored and co-authored more than 50 research papers on various economic issues.

Muhammad Shahid Hassan

Muhammad Shahid Hassan is an Assistant Professor at Department of Economics and Quantitative Methods, Dr. Hasan Murad School of Management (HSM), University of Management and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan. He is currently engaged in both teaching and research. Over a span of fifteen years of his professional career, he has earned vast exposure of classroom teaching techniques, students’ counselling, and applied research. He has authored and reviewed many research articles in the domain of Economics, Energy, Natural Resources and Environmental Science which are published in renowned international and national journals.

Aiedh Mrisi Alharthi

Aiedh Mrisi Alharthi holds Bachelors of Science degree in Mathematics from Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA, in 1997. He holds a Master’s degree in Statistics from Taif University, Taif, KSA, in 2014. He holds Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Mathematics from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Malaysia, 2022. He is currently an assistant Professor with Taif University, KSA. His research interests are feature selection, optimization algorithms, high-dimensional data, penalized (regularized) methods, imputation of missing values, high-dimensional data, and data science and analytics.

Olayan Albalawi

Olayan Albalawi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistics, Faculty of Science, University of Tabuk. He holds a PhD in Applied Statistics from the University of New South Wales, Australia, awarded in 2020, as well as a Master of Statistics from the University of New Mexico, USA, earned in 2016. Additionally, he obtained a Master’s degree in Mathematical Science from the University of Queensland of Technology, Australia, in 2011. He is serving as a reviewer for the King Saud of Science journal and has published numerous papers in reputable journals.