NYU Shanghai Professor Awarded Open Topic Grant by LOUD

Recently, Tyler Haupert, Assistant Professor of Urban Studies at NYU Shanghai, was awarded an open topic grant by the Shanghai Key Laboratory of Urban Design and Urban Science (LOUD). Professor Tyler Haupert is also a core faculty member of LOUD, which was founded by Professor ChengHe Guan and Professor Ying Li. Leveraging NYU Shanghai's strengths in scientific research, particularly in urban science, data science, and social science, LOUD is expanding its international vision and fostering international cooperation. LOUD aims to strengthen interdisciplinary collaboration, promote the integration of industry, learning, research, and application, and ultimately establish itself as an academic center with innovative vitality and an internationally advanced platform for urban studies.

Tyler Haupert

The open topic grant of LOUD primarily supports domestic and international researchers in conducting urban research. It aims to establish a platform for academic research, exchange, and collaboration, bringing together researchers with diverse disciplinary backgrounds and research experiences. In 2022, the open-topic grant received a total of 27 applications from universities in China and abroad, including Peking University, Tongji University, University of California Berkeley, and Texas A&M University. Thirteen awardees were selected, and they have since collaborated on and co-published several research papers.

In 2023, LOUD continued its support for scientific research in urban areas. Among numerous applicants, Professor Tyler Haupert's research proposal stood out, securing funding for his project titled “The Digital Turn in Real Estate Finance: Comparing the United States and China.” Recently, LOUD conducted an interview with Professor Haupert, aiming to draw inspiration from his academic experience to benefit fellow urban researchers.

LOUD: Please briefly introduce yourself.

Haupert: I am an Assistant Professor of Urban Studies at NYU Shanghai. I also serve as a Faculty Affiliate at the NYU Furman Center, the Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis. My research focuses on the technological, economic, and regulatory mechanisms contributing to racial disparities, segregation, and exclusion in urban areas. I have particular interests in mortgage lending, fintech, housing affordability, homelessness, and neighborhood change. I strive to design studies that inform policy and produce actionable results for legislators, regulators, planners, and advocacy organizations. I have a Ph.D. degree in Urban Planning at Columbia University.

LOUD: Could you talk about previous collaboration with Professor ChengHe Guan, Professor Ying Li and LOUD?

Haupert: Professor Guan, Professor Li and I are currently collaborating on a project comparing the real estate development and mortgage lending policy contexts in the United States and China. We believe that a comparative perspective of this important industry in the two largest world economies can yield insights for policymakers and practitioners alike. Professor Guan, Professor Li and I have also collaborated on the curriculum development and teaching offerings of the Urban Studies track at NYU Shanghai.

LOUD: What is your open topic grant research about?

Haupert: This project (the Digital Turn in Real Estate Finance: Comparing the United States and China) seeks to use a mixed methods approach to evaluate the characteristics of real estate developers in China and the United States’ increasing turn toward the use of digital tools to evaluate customers and projects, and the collection of digital data as a potential revenue source. The project team will work with an interdisciplinary, international group of collaborators to first conduct interviews with developers and real estate finance institutions to better understand their collection of user data and their use of urban analytical tools to analyze, package, and monetize those data. These interviews will, in part, allow for the project team to create a taxonomy of developers and financiers depending on the nature of these entities’ use of digital platforms and collection of user data. The project will then seek to link consumer outcomes to developers’ and financial institution’s levels of digital activity. This latter task will utilize both geospatial and econometric analytical tools. This project will be the first to comparatively assess the digital turn in real estate in the United States and China.

LOUD: Why is it important to make a comparison between China and the United States?

Haupert: Although the two countries differ in important political and economic ways, their respective real estate industries are both on the forefront of digitization and using advanced technologies to finance and manage projects. A comparative perspective allows for the identification of strengths and weaknesses in approaches, and can also reveal innovations that can benefit industry actors and consumers across contexts. China and the United States are rarely viewed comparatively in this way, so this project offers the opportunity to break academic ground, which is exciting.

LOUD: What is your plan for the research?

Haupert: The project will unfold in four distinct steps. First, an exhaustive literature review on the modern real estate markets in the United States and China will be conducted sing both English and Chinese sources.

Second, the project lead will work with a collaborator at a community economic development nonprofit in the United States to conduct interviews with developers and real estate finance institutions to better understand their collection of user data and their use of urban analytical tools to analyze, package, and monetize those data.

Third, the project lead will collaborate with members of LOUD and other NYU Shanghai faculty to conduct interviews with Chinese real estate professionals to investigate how they plan to use non-physical resources, such as digital user data, to make lending and development decisions and to monetize these data for sale.

Finally, data from the interviews will, allow for the project team to create a taxonomy of developers and financiers depending on the nature of these entities’ use of digital platforms and collection of user data. With the taxonomy of developers in hand, the project will leverage an urban analytics approach using both anonymized individual and aggregated consumer data to determine the relationship between developer and lender types and consumer outcomes.

We will aim to produce several peer-reviewed publications from these data and disseminate them at both academic and practitioner-focused conferences.

LOUD: Thank you for your time. We hope to have more collaboration in the future.