# A Data-Driven Analysis on the Impact of High-Speed Rails on Land Prices in Taiwan
## 5 Conclusions  
This study examines the determinants of house price fundamentals across 11 cities in Taiwan and discusses the effect of the high-speed rail on real estate prices taking into consideration the unequal economic, societal, and infrastructure developments among the cities. As an alternative to the hedonic pricing model, this study used an integrated methodology composed of system dynamics, multivariate regression, and principal component analysis. The empirical analysis will cover a 12 year period between 2005 and 2016 inclusive. Through system dynamics, a casual loop diagram was drawn to hypothesize the possible system behavior of interacting variables in determining the land prices. The parameters estimated in a multivariable regression model were used to identify the directions and strength of relationships between these variables, representing stages of economic, societal and infrastructural development, and land prices. Finally, the interaction effect of HSR and the exogenous environment was investigated via principal component analysis. Despite the use of a different methodology, the results obtained were relatively consistent with those in the existing literature. The existence of HSR was found to increase land prices most significantly when economic conditions were promising, consumer prices were high, and unemployment rates were low. Favorable exchange rates and low lending rates coupled with the presence of a free trade zone that encouraged foreign investment and stimulated commercial activities exerted positive effects on housing prices. To a lesser extent, construction costs and a more distant airport also increased real estate prices. These results are similar to [PERSON] et al. [50] who had shown that strong local economic development created additional employment and increased immigration in most Australian capital cities, especially Sydney and Brisbane, and pushed up property prices. In another study, [PERSON] [51] found that population, economic growth, stock returns, and inflation were key factors for the increase in house prices indexes in 24 European cities. Construction cost is associated with housing prices, while interest and unemployment rates adversely affect housing prices. More notably, findings from this study indicated negative relationships between the degree of internet penetration and population size and property prices in the presence of the HSR. The findings can be interpreted as such: A high degree of internet penetration supports ecommerce which alleviates the need of physical space for retail and office and aids in the dissemination of information on real estate availability. For cities with larger populations, the supply of houses on the market will also be larger  
Figure 8: Eigenvalues and proportion from the PCA results. An efficient information flow drives the market to behave in a monopolistic competitive manner and price competition among similar types of property will cause property prices to fall. Also, when a high-speed rail station is present in a densely populated city, it helps to bring the population away to other neighboring areas. This helps to decrease the demand pressure and reduce the prices for housing. Meanwhile, a large population contributes to the HSR ridership and justifies the economic cost of constructing and running the HSR. Overall, the study suggests that HSR should be introduced in cities where the population density and internet penetration are high and the airport is far away. In doing so, the city can enjoy the enhanced accessibility while mitigating the increase in land prices brought about by the HSR. Taking a step further, the adoption rate of the HSR can be included for a more accurate quantification of the impact of HSR on accessibility and land prices. [PERSON] et al. [52] termed HSR accessibility service to be one that considers qualities such as punctuality and departure schedules, service quality, passenger satisfaction, passenger loyalty, corporate image, and operations performance.