An empirical investigation of retail rents in five European cities

Presents the findings of the first comparative econometric investigation into the influence of demand side forces on retail rent determination in European cities. Examines five major retail centres ‐ Amsterdam, Brussels, Hamburg, London and Paris ‐ over the period 1980 to 1994. Estimates for each city a theory consistent model which tests influences of GDP, retail sales and consumer expenditure on changes in retail rents. Univariate and multivariate regressions show that the relative explanatory capabilities of these influences exhibit a notable degree of variation between the cities. A time series cross‐sectional analysis demonstrates that contemporaneous changes in GDP are the most important common determinant of retail rents across the cities and that the process of rent determination in Paris is influenced by different structural factors from the other cities examined.