Feature of the Month
: Global Real Estate
While looking at the global landscape of real estate, the general consensus would be that the overall market is struggling as housing prices around the world continue to fall. However, one particular real estate sector is experiencing a slightly different situation. Soaring food prices worldwide and a greatly increasing global population have given way to the growing value of farmland in many countries. In the United Kingdom agricultural land prices have increased substantially this past year and many land investments have doubled in value. The country of China has recognized the trend of growing farmland prices and over the past years has targeted more than 20 million hectares of land in Africa for investment hoping land prices there will rise like other places across the globe. Many countries have followed China’s lead as Africa currently has the cheapest arable land in the world.
Elsewhere, as new technologies allow farmers to produce greater yields, the value of farmland in the United States has also increased. These new technologies coupled with growing global demand have allowed the state of Michigan cropland to rise 6.1 percent. Land has sold at such high values around the world that some people have even argued that farmland may be the next financial bubble similar to the housing market collapse. Despite this speculation, others claim that farmland will remain a valuable asset due to the simple fact that food production must increase 70 percent by 2050 to satisfy global population growth. A global trend for years has involved land-poor countries purchasing farmland abroad in order to protect themselves from food supply scarcity. If farmland values continue to rise, these increasing prices will have great effects on land investments between land-poor nations and developing countries rich with land.
Featured Resources
OECD: Financial Markets
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which is comprised of 30 member countries, offers a wealth of information relating to global finance and investment. This site provides information relating to banking, securities and institutional investors, and the development of international financial best practices.
Category: Finance
PricewaterhouseCoopers: Construction
PricewaterhouseCoopers provides background information on industry sectors globally. This site includes an up-to-date industry environment description, challenges facing the industry and potential solutions, free downloadable publications including annual reviews, and events.
Category: Construction
Featured Academy
Global Agricultural Trade
The Global Agriculture Trade module contains information on the following: the reasons for the growth of trade in agricultural products and why countries want to trade globally rather than protect domestic markets; comparative and competitive advantage; how trade can benefit consumers in all countries; and the reasons behind increased global agricultural trade. An interactive game designed to teach students about global agricultural production is also included.
Category: Agricultural Business
Global Market Opportunity Assessment
The Global Market Opportunity Assessment module informs one on the following issues: why it is important to assess global market opportunities; how companies conduct market opportunity assessment; what makes market research effective; practical approaches to identifying foreign market opportunities. A sample global market opportunity assessment questionnaire and a case study on Thailand’s growing importance in the global export market are also included in the module.
Category: Market Research and Entry
globalEDGE Business Review
"The Lodging Market Potential Index (L-MPI©) Ranking of Major Lodging Markets in the United States"
by A.J. Singh, Raymond S. Schmidgall, and Tunga Kiyak (Volume 6, Number 1, pp. 1-5, 2012)
The Lodging Market Potential Index (L-MPI©) as a systematic and formal analysis was developed as a joint project between The School of Hospitality Business, MSUCIBER, and globalEDGE to identify aggregate market potential and ranking for major lodging markets in the USA in 2009. Faculty researchers from The School of Hospitality Business at Michigan State University presented the index at the Midwest Lodging Investors Summit (MLIS) in Chicago, in July 2011. This article presents the complete index (L-MPI©), which covers the 25 largest market areas (as tracked by Smith Travel Research) that show the long term potential of lodging investments.
