Summary

Kwok Yuen Fan is an assistant professor of economics and finance at the Hang Seng University of Hong Kong. He received his Ph.D. in Real Estate Economics from Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His research focuses on Sustainability, Real Estate Economics and Finance, and Corporate Finance. He passed the CFA Level III and FRM Part II examinations and has several published papers in reputable journals such as the World Development, International Review of Financial Analysis, Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics and Journal of Real Estate Research.

Education

• Real Estate Economics

  2023-08-31
  The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

  Courses: Thesis: Institutional designs and environmental governance
• Research (Business/Finance)

  2023-06-30
  Nanyang Technological University, Nanyang Business School
• Advanced Financial Analysis

  2018-09-30
  Lancaster University

  Courses: Dissertation: The cross-sectional profitability of idiosyncratic volatility and its common pattern for stock returns: Empirical evidence from the U.S. markets
• Business Administration

  2016-08-31
  The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong

Work Experience

• Assistant Professor of Economics and Finance

  2025-09-01 -
  The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong (HSUHK)

  • Lecturer, Urban and Real Estate Economics
  • Lecturer, Business Economics
• Assistant Professor of Finance

  2023-09-01 - 2025-08-31
  Beijing Normal-Hong Kong Baptist University (BNBU)

  • Lecturer, Financial Forecasting (4.97/5.00)
  • Lecturer, Business Research Method (4.89/5.00)
  • Lecturer, Financial Management (4.96/5.00)
  • Lecturer, Corporate Finance (4.76/5.00)
  • Lecturer, Multinational Finance (4.93/5.00)
• Research Assistant

  2020-09-01 - 2023-08-31
  The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

  • Tutor, Development Finance and Investment
  • Tutor, Construction Economics
  • Tutor, Business Valuation and Accounts
• Associate

  2019-01-01 - 2019-12-31
  Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu

Publications

• Performance measurability, local government’s incentives, and regional air pollution reduction

  2025
  World Development

  Enhanced environmental performance measurability leads to improved environmental quality, particularly when local leaders possess strong career incentives and their financial support is directly contingent on successful environmental protection outcomes.

  View Publication
• Why high-speed rail causes heterogeneous spatial patterns in firm innovation: Perspectives from intensive and extensive margins

  2024
  PloS one

  This paper decompose the impact of high-speed rail (HSR) on firm innovation into extensive (more firms innovating) and intensive (firms innovating more) margins, revealing that the net positive effect is a trade-off between beneficial knowledge spillovers and a detrimental "brain drain" from peripheral counties to urban centers. While HSR boosts overall innovation, it can exacerbate regional inequality, necessitating targeted policies to support innovation in peripheral areas and mitigate the brain drain effect.

  View Publication
• ESG components and equity returns: Evidence from real estate investment trusts

  2024
  International Review of Financial Analysis

  For US Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), this study finds that higher environmental performance negatively impacts future stock returns and firm fundamentals, while social and governance performance are positively associated with both. These contrasting effects stem from environmental investments' high costs versus the benefits of social and governance practices, underscoring that ESG's influence on equity returns is component-specific.

  View Publication
• The value of sustainable property management in real estate: Evidence from Hong Kong

  2024
  Journal of Real Estate Research

  ESG performance of property management companies is capitalized into housing prices, with the value premium driven by a reduction in perceived risk and a higher rental growth rate rather than by higher gross rents. Management firms can directly enhance property values by improving ESG practices, and investors should incorporate this non-physical attribute into their valuations.

  View Publication
• The valuation effect and consequences of clawback adoption in real estate investment trusts

  2024
  The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics

  Clawback provisions are a value-relevant corporate governance mechanism even in the highly regulated REIT market, as investors positively value the adoption of strong policies, particularly in firms with higher prior financial restatement risk and disclosure opacity. Adopting such policies tangibly improves REIT governance by reducing the likelihood of financial restatements, enhancing the quality of financial disclosures, and curbing aggressive investment.

  View Publication
• Did real estate professionals anticipate the 2007-2008 financial crisis? Evidence from insider trading in the REITs

  2021
  The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics

  Real estate professionals in REITs anticipated the 2007-2008 financial crisis by significantly selling their holdings as early as 2004, which refutes the competing "biased belief hypothesis" that they were over-optimistic. Unlike many experts in the broader financial industry, these sophisticated real estate insiders successfully foresaw the systemic risk in the housing market, suggesting their trading patterns can act as an early warning signal for sector-wide bubbles.

  View Publication
• The beta anomaly in the REIT market

  2021
  The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics

  The beta anomaly in the REIT market and providing evidence that it is driven by institutional investors' preference for high-beta assets, which supports the leverage constraints hypothesis over alternative explanations. This institutional demand inflates the prices of high-beta REITs, causing their subsequent risk-adjusted underperformance and creating profitable opportunities for strategies that bet against beta.

  View Publication

Languages

• English

  Fluent
• Chinese

  Native speaker

Interests

• Sustainability

  Climate change, Biodiversity, Greenwashing
• Real Estate

  Climate resilience, Green buildings, Land
• Corporate Finance

  Fintech, Blended Finance, Political Economy

References

• Jeff Jianfu Shen

  PhD Supervisor, Associate Professor, Department of Building & Real Estate, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, jeff.jf.shen@polyu.edu.hk
• Eddie C.M. Hui

  PhD Supervisor, Chair Professor; Department Head, Department of Public and International Affairs, City University of Hong Kong, chimhui@cityu.edu.hk
• Xin Chang

  Professor; Associate Dean (Research), Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University, changxin@ntu.edu.sg
• Weimin Liu

  Chair Professor; Associate Dean, Faculty of Business and Management, Beijing Normal - Hong Kong Baptist University, weiminliu@uic.edu.cn