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Comparative Cheap Talk: Evidence from the Housing Market

Lingxiao Li & Xie Jia

International Real Estate Review2025https://doi.org/10.53383/100400article
ABDC C
Weight
0.50

What the paper says

Using real estate transaction data, we provide the first empirical test of the comparative cheap talk model in Chakraborty and Harbaugh (2010), which predicts that a real estate agent can credibly reveal information of a house by making comparative statements that make the house more appealing in some areas but less along others. Consistent with the prediction, we find that comparative statements are associated with a 0.8% price premium, with all else being equal. The premium is larger for houses with more potential buyers, but switches sign and becomes a discount when there are too few buyers.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.53383/100400

Or copy a formatted citation

@article{lingxiao2025,
  title        = {{Comparative Cheap Talk: Evidence from the Housing Market}},
  author       = {Lingxiao Li & Xie Jia},
  journal      = {International Real Estate Review},
  year         = {2025},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.53383/100400},
}

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Comparative Cheap Talk: Evidence from the Housing Market

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.