A Study of Contemporaneous Residential Real Estate Price Causation Across Major Jiangsu Province Cities: Methodology Using Vector Error-Correction Models and Directed Acyclic Graphs

This study employs a unified methodological approach, integrating vector error-correction modeling (VECM) with directed acyclic graphs (DAGs), to rigorously examine the changing interrelationships in monthly housing prices across five major Jiangsu Province cities: Nanjing, Xuzhou, Wuxi, Kunshan, and Suzhou. The investigation covers a substantial timeframe of nearly 13 years (January 2012–July 2024). Complementary computational methods infer the underlying DAG structure: first, the PC algorithm establishes an initial set of plausible causal patterns; second, the LiNGAM (Linear Non-Gaussian Acyclic Model) technique utilizes data non-Gaussianity to resolve directional uncertainties, pinpointing a definitive…