中国住宅投资引领经济增长吗?

本文运用1985—2009年中国各省、直辖市、自治区的数据,对住宅投资与经济增长之间的领先—滞后关系进行分析。结果表明,无论是1985—2009年全时段还是以1998年大规模房改为分界线的分时段,无论是全国各省市还是分区域的各省市面板数据,经济增长引领住宅投资的单向Granger因果关系是稳定的;不同于一些研究和政策措施所主张的住宅投资引领经济增长的观点,本文认为找不到证据来支持住宅投资带动经济增长的论点。由此可见,所谓"住宅引领增长假说"在我国并不成立,而我国自上世纪90年代中期以来一直大力促进住宅投资以带动经济增长、把住宅建设当作国民经济的新增长点和支柱产业的政策值得反思。

Does Housing Investment Lead Economic Growth in China?

Using Chinese provincial panel data from 1985 to 2009, this paper employs panel unit root tests, panel co-integration method and VECM to analyze the lead-lag relationship between housing investment and economic growth in China. Empirical results show that there is a stable uni-directional Granger-causality between housing investment and GDP in China, and the direction of Granger causality runs from GDP to housing investment, no matter whether it is at the national level or at the sub-regional level, no matter whether it is before or after the 1998 mass housing reform. These findings imply that "The Housing-led Growth Hypothesis" does not stand in China, and the policies formulated and enforced by the government to promote housing investment as a tool of economic development since the mid-1990s should be re-evaluated.