Contemporaneous Causal Analysis of Housing Prices Across Guangdong’s Major Cities: Employing Vector Error-Correction Modeling and Directed Acyclic Graphs

This research adopts a cohesive analytical strategy, combining vector error-correction modeling (VECM) with directed acyclic graphs (DAGs), to rigorously assess evolving connections in monthly home prices across six key Guangdong cities. These cities include Dongguan, Zhongshan, Foshan, Guangzhou, Huizhou and Zhuhai. The analysis spans a significant period of nearly thirteen years (November 2011–July 2024). Supporting computational procedures determine the fundamental DAG structure: Initially, the PC algorithm identifies a preliminary set of potential causal relationships; subsequently, the LiNGAM (Linear Non-Gaussian Acyclic Model) approach leverages non-Gaussian data characteristics to eliminate directional…