REITS, REAL-ESTATE, AND INFLATION - LESSONS FROM THE GOLD MARKET

This study indirectly tests whether equity Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) proxy for real estate when examining real estate's inflation hedging ability. The hedging properties of gold, an underlying asset, are compared against those of gold stocks, a securitized form of the asset, and gold is shown to perform well as an inflation hedge, while gold stocks do not. This divergence between an asset and its securitized form suggests caution in drawing conclusions about real estate's ability to hedge inflation from equity REIT studies.