A paper by Dr. Craig Depken, professor of economics, received the "Thinking Outside the Box" best-paper award for innovative thinking at the 2011 annual meeting of the American Real Estate Society (ARES).
The paper, "Flips, Flops and Foreclosures: Anatomy of a Housing Bubble," examines data from real estate transactions in the metropolitan Las Vegas area from 1994-2009. Co-written by Steve Swidler and Harris Hollans from Auburn University, the analysis shows that price is the driving force behind a bubble and that loan modification programs alone will not solve the current housing crisis.
Dr. Depken joined the Belk College in 2007 from the University of Texas at Arlington. A highly-regarded expert in the economics of sports, he has widely published in other areas including economics of advertising, applied public choice, and local and regional economic development.
The American Real Estate Society (ARES is an association of real estate thought leaders. Members are drawn from academia and the profession at large, both in the United States and internationally. The Society is dedicated to producing and disseminating knowledge related to real estate decision making and the functioning of real estate markets. The Society publishes six journals: Journal of Real Estate Research (JRER), Journal of Real Estate Portfolio Management (JREPM), Journal of Real Estate Literature (JREL), Journal of Real Estate Practice and Education (JREPE), Journal of Sustainable Real Estate (JOSRE) and Journal of Housing Research (JHR).