Real Estate Financialization and Property State 2.0: The Rise of Real Estate Investment Trusts in Singapore and Hong Kong
研究新加坡和香港房地产投资信托基金（REITs）的崛起，揭示其并非市场自发过程，而是财产国家制度（如国有地产私有化和税收政策）的产物，并提出了“财产国家2.0”概念，对研究国家资本主义和房地产金融化的学者有参考价值。
Singapore and Hong Kong, two prominent city economies, were deemed prototypical property states owing to their competitive real estate sector and its dominance in the economy and society. Over the past two decades, financialization, marked by the rise of real estate investment trusts (REITs), has fundamentally transformed the real estate landscape and the economic foundation of state capitalism. This article revisits the property state thesis, revealing that the rise of REITs in both cities reflects an adaptation to global financialization trends and the persistence of a competent role played by the real estate sector. More importantly, we argue that the rise of REITs should not be seen as a spontaneous market process, but rather as a product of the established property state institutions, primarily the privatization and incorporation of large property holdings by the state and, to a lesser extent, real estate taxation policies. Our contributions are twofold. First, we introduce the concept of property state 2.0 as a heuristic device dissecting the evolutionary property states, featuring a marriage between local property capital and global financial capital. Second, this study also contributes to the lasting state capitalism debates, highlighting the emergent tendency of developing a state–capitalist property sector to enhance local economic competitiveness. The comparison between Singapore and Hong Kong shows that pursuing this developmental trajectory is less constrained by local institutional endowments but hinges more on governance ideologies and policy priorities.