On June 5, 2019, the appointment ceremony of Tsinghua Distinguished Visiting Professor Yongheng DENG was held in Department of Construction Management, Tsinghua University. The ceremony starts with the welcome speech given by Jing WU, Head of Department of Construction Management. He briefly introduced Professor Yongheng DENG and his extraordinary achievements. Then, on behalf of the School, Professor Hongyu LIU, Director of Institute of Real Estate Studies, awarded Yongheng DENG the certificate of Distinguished Visiting Professor. Over 30 university staff and students witnessed the ceremony.

In his speech, Professor Deng expressed his gratitude for the recognition of the University and the School. He recalled how he had entered the real estate field by chance in the past and pointed out that the real estate field is experiencing various changes at present. The intersection of various disciplines makes the research scope of the real estatefield much broader than ever before. Scholars need to combine the knowledge of economics, psychology, natural sciences and techniques in order to better solve the problems raised by the industry.

Then Professor Deng made a presentation of his ongoing research about the relationship between climate and real estate mortgage default. The preliminary results show that climate change (global warming and cloud thickening) will lead to an increase in the probability of strategic mortgage defaults. The audiences had a constructive discussion with Professor Deng about the research.

About Yongheng DENG

Yongheng DENG is a Professor and the John P. Morgridge Distinguished Chair in Business, in the Department of Real Estate and Urban Land Economics, Wisconsin School of Business, University of Wisconsin – Madison. Professor Deng is one of the leading scholars in the field of real estate finance and real estate economics, especially on topics related to housing mortgage defaults. Professor Deng has published more than 50 papers on leading academic journals such as Econometrica and Journal of Financial Economics, including the most highly cited paper in the real estate field so far. Professor Deng has also held important positions in several major international academic organizations in the field of urban and real estate economics, including becoming the first Chinese to chair the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association in 2014.