Abstract

Real estate development in emerging markets lacks transparency and is rather a ‘black box’ to foreign direct investors. We apply an empirical method to compare the real estate development process in an emerging market with a U.S. benchmark model. In particular, through a detailed survey of real estate development managers in India, we find evidence that firms that are larger, older, operate in smaller cities or are not seeking foreign investment significantly differ in the development process from the benchmark model. Based on the responses, we apply the method to propose a five stage real estate development process model for India. We offer a simple method to quantify the cross-national differences and scientifically generalize the processes in the opaque emerging markets.