(Correspondent: Wang Tianjian) From July 13^th to July 16^th, Dr. Jing Kecen of School of Economics attended the 2023 Annual Conference of Asian Real Estate Society (AsRES) held at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and made a presentation of her paper “How Does Highway Market Access Affect Human Capital Investment? Micro-Level Evidence from China” at the conference. Taking the construction of China’s national highway network as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper studies how regional market accessibility brought by transportation infrastructure affects junior high school graduates’ educational decision-making and household human capital investment. Furthermore, the paper discusses the mechanism of this effect from perspectives of the opportunity cost and long-term reward of education, and the supply of low-skilled labor jobs. In addition, Dr. Jing also participated in the paper review session as a commentator, and actively discussed issues such as urban transportation and school-district housing policy with participating scholars.

Founded in 1996, AsRES aims at promoting the exchange and share of knowledge and cutting-edge academic results in the field of Asian real estate. Its annual conference is one of the most influential conference in this field. During the conference, the scholars had in-depth conversations and heated discussions on topics such as urban issues and policy, real estate technology and innovation, urban diversity and inclusive housing policy, and the sustainable development of urban environment.