Does local governments’ budget deficit push up housing prices in China?

Budget deficit has been a common fiscal pressure facing Chinese cities since the 1994 fiscal reform. Meanwhile, land lease sales have become a significant off-budgetary revenue to local governments since 2003. This paper investigates whether financing budget deficit is an important driving force of the recent soaring housing prices when local governments function as the monopoly supplier of urban land. A conceptual framework is developed to illustrate a transmission mechanism from budget deficit to housing prices. This leads to an empirical model consisting of two simultaneous structural equations for housing prices and land prices. Using data for the 35 major Chinese cities from 2003 to 2011, an empirical exercise shows that although budget deficit has a positive effect on land prices, it is the factors from demand side, such as amenities, income and the user cost of housing capital, that have been pulling up the housing prices.     

House prices in the Ottoman Empire: evidence from eighteenth‐century Edirne†

This study uses a new dataset of 2,246 notarial deeds of house sales from one of the major cities of the Ottoman Empire, Edirne, covering the period from 1720 to 1814. It estimates real hedonic house prices and urban wealth inequality for the housing market. It shows that house size, proximity to the commercial centre, access to fresh water, and family ties were important determinants of relative house prices. These findings also apply to the different quartiles of the market, indicating limited market segmentation. It demonstrates that there was an increase in housing wealth inequality during the eighteenth century as house prices became more dispersed. The hedonic house price index provides evidence that inflation‐adjusted house prices declined substantially following the Russo‐Turkish war of 1768–74. The decline is mainly explained through demographic shocks induced by plague epidemics, natural disasters, and other population movements driven by wars, army mobilization, and political upheavals.     

Do bank loans and local amenities explain Chinese urban house prices?

Based on Chinese city-level data from 1999 to 2012 and controlling for geological, environmental, and social diversity, our multi-step estimation suggests that credit plays a significant role in driving up house prices after the Great Recession, whereas property prices only influence bank lending before 2008. Local amenities such as higher education, green infrastructure, healthcare, and climate also positively affect house prices. Moreover, the impacts of bank loans on housing prices tend to be related to the level of amenities, suggesting that pooling macroeconomic and urban economic data may be important for housing market research in the future.     

公共服务设施步行可达性对住宅价格的影响——基于累积机会的可达性度量方法

构建节能环保低碳的“绿色交通体系”是目前解决城市交通及其一系列衍生问题的重要举措。“将生活与服务混在一起”对于提升步行效能、促进步行和降低机动交通需求有重要的现实意义。公共服务设施步行可达性,反映居民获取公共服务设施的难易程度,对住宅价格具有资本化效应。文章以厦门岛1840个普通多/高层住宅为样本,通过累积机会法评价教育、商业、医疗和文体4种公共服务设施的步行可达性,并构建特征价格方程来检验公共品在住宅市场的资本化方向与程度。研究发现,教育、医疗和商业3类公共服务设施的规划布局已资本化入住宅价格：教育和商业服务步行可达性对住宅价格有正向影响,而二/三甲医院步行可达性有负向影响;省示范小学步行可达性对房价的正向影响大于重点中学;市区级文化体育中心对房价的影响不显著;此外,建筑面积、小区内部环境、商业中心距离等因素对房价都有显著的影响。特征价格模型也实证估计了各特征变量对住宅价格的影响程度。     

Semiparametric Model of Hedonic Housing Prices in Japan

We propose a semiparametric hedonic model of housing prices with nonlinearity in age and cohort effects. The model avoids the simultaneity problem among age, cohort and year effects, which is a common problem in linear hedonic models. Applying the model to housing prices in Tokyo between 1990 and 2008 revealed significant nonlinearities in both the age and cohort effects, and significant interactions between these effects, with the shape of the age effect differing across housing cohorts. Estimates of the year effect indicated a declining trend in prices that was more pronounced compared with those of conventional linear hedonic models.     

Fundamentals and the volatility of real estate prices in China: A sequential modelling strategy

In a similar way to the stock market, the housing market in China has often been portrayed as highly speculative, giving rise to “bubble” concerns. Over the last decade, residential prices increased every year on average by double digits in Beijing or Shanghai. However many observers and researchers argue that fundamentals of the housing sector, both sector-specific and macroeconomic, may have been the driving force behind housing price volatility. While existing empirical work exclusively relies on the government housing prices which may suffer from the well-documented downward bias, this paper uses original high frequency unit price as well as transaction series for the residential resale housing markets of Beijing and Shanghai between January 2005 and December 2010 to test alternative hypotheses about housing prices volatility.We propose a sequential strategy in five steps integrating several techniques previously developed in a piecemeal and scattered way. First, we construct daily hedonic prices. Second, in order to search for the possible presence of bubbles on such high-frequency data, we propose using recently developed tests of an explosive root as an alternative to the unit root hypothesis. The third step is generated by the necessity of handling microstructure noise present at a daily frequency, thus filtering the raw data to extract a random walk component. The fourth step extracts a slowly changing monthly volatility component from the filtered daily hedonic real estate data. Finally, in so far as the presence of bubbles does not seem to characterize the residential housing market in major Chinese cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai, in a fifth step we show that fundamentals are able to explain slowly changing volatility, as well as transaction volumes in these first‐tier cities.     

Housing Attribute Preferences in a Northern Mexico Metropolitan Economy

Studies of the valuation of housing attributes have been conducted for numerous metropolitan markets. Empirical analyses of this nature for cities in Latin America and Mexico are less common. This study utilizes data for 175 new houses in Ciudad Juarez, a major metropolitan economy in northern Mexico, to estimate a hedonic pricing model. All units in the sample were completed and sold between November 2006 and April 2007. For each house, a total of 14 characteristics relating to structure and location are employed as explanatory variables. Estimation results indicate that the structural characteristics play bigger roles than the neighborhood amenities. Surprisingly, neighborhood parks are found to lower housing values.      

Housing affordability during the urban transition in Spain

During the decades prior to the Civil War, Spain experienced a rapid process of urbanization, which was accompanied by the demographic transition and sizeable rural–urban migrations. This article investigates how urban housing markets reacted to these far‐reaching changes, which increased demand for dwellings. To this end, this study employs a new hedonic index of real housing prices and constructs a cross‐regional panel dataset of rents and housing price fundamentals. This new evidence indicates that rents were not a significant financial burden on low‐income families and, hence, housing was affordable for the working classes. The article also shows that families’ access to new homes was facilitated by a sizeable growth in the housing supply. Substantial investments in urban infrastructure and the institutional framework enabled the construction of new homes at affordable prices. Our results suggest that housing problems were not as pervasive during the urban transition as the literature often seems to claim.     

Valuing school quality, better transport, and lower crime: evidence from house prices

Housing prices within urban areas exhibit highly localized variationthat cannot be explained solely by differences in the physicalattributes of dwellings. We consider the role of local amenitiesand disamenities in generating price variation within urbanareas, focusing on three highly policy-relevant urban issues–transportaccessibility, school quality, and crime. Our survey of therecent empirical literature highlights what is known and whatis not known on these issues, and considers the relevance andreliability of this evidence for policy design and evaluation.Although there are serious empirical challenges, we argue thatresearch on housing values based on careful research designscan offer credible estimates of the social value of place-specificattributes and amenities.     

The impacts of distance to CBD on housing prices in Shanghai: a hedonic analysis

It is widely recognized that location is the primary determining factor of housing price. But to what extent the variation of housing price in Shanghai can be explained by the locational factor has not been empirically examined. In this paper, we examine the power of applying the hedonic method to the spatial-statistical analysis of housing prices in Shanghai. The data we use covers all new commercial residential housings sold in Shanghai during July 2004 and June 2006. The main focus in this paper is to examine the effect of geographical distance to city centre on the selling price of residential housings in Shanghai. We also discuss how the price gradient varies at different directions in Shanghai. Finally, we demonstrate the importance of applying quality control on the development of a housing price index. The statistical methodology and empirical results obtained in this paper carry interesting implications for other cities in China as well.     

城市住房产品配置效率分析

随着我国人口向城市转移,城市住房需求矛盾日渐突出,解决城市住房合理供给问题十分迫切。城市住房产品具有准公共性,完全由市场提供或公共提供都会造成社会总收益的损失。优化我国城市住房产品配置效率措施应为采取混合提供方式,坚持市场化供给,加大小户型、低总价住房供给,平抑过高房价,保持房价平稳增涨。     

Reflected Glory Versus Repulsive Envy: How Do the Smiths Feel About the House of the Joneses?*

A key question raised regarding conspicuous consumption is whether such consumption leads to positive or negative net externalities. The present paper examines how the presence of luxury and expensive properties within a local area affects the house prices in Taipei City. Positive externalities may be associated with improved urban amenities or reflected glory. Negative externalities may be associated with the adverse reference group effect; that is, repulsive envy. The paper discusses the spillover effects due to changes in neighborhood's housing characteristics, and shows significant spatial patterns in house prices and the importance of socioeconomic influences on house prices.     

Asymmetric Fluctuating Behavior of China's Housing Prices

The present study explains the reasons for the imbalanced development of the Chinese housing market. Using the quantile autoregression unit‐root test, we examine housing prices in China's five major cities. The results show that the rising and falling of housing prices in these cities exhibits asymmetric reversion. When housing prices fall, market capital is highly sensitive to housing prices, and housing prices resist the pressure to fall further. However, when housing prices rise, the housing market becomes imbalanced, with housing prices tending to overreact in an upturn. The results of this study indicate that when housing prices rise irrationally, the government should intervene in the housing market promptly to prevent housing bubbles.     

Impacts of high-speed rail construction on land prices in urban agglomerations: Evidence from Kyushu in Japan

High-speed rail integrates regions and cities, and thus can possibly have significant impacts on the distribution of economic activities. Using the opening and extensions of a high-speed rail, Shinkansen, in Kyushu, Japan, we examine its effects on land prices in urban agglomerations, which would reflect changes in the distribution of economic activities across urban agglomerations. We estimate hedonic price equations to conduct a difference-in-differences analysis. We find that the large metropolitan areas gained from the high-speed rail by experiencing increases in land prices, whereas small metropolitan areas located between them lost by experiencing decreased land prices. However, such positive effects are shown to be limited to areas close to Shinkansen stations.     

The effect of gasoline prices on suburban housing values in China

By raising road transportation costs, an increase in gasoline prices should be expected to reduce housing demand in locations further from the central business district (CBD) relative to inner-city locations. This study uses a monthly real estate area dataset for 19 large cities in China over 2010–2018 to investigate the impact of gasoline prices on intra-city spatial differentials in housing prices. The findings suggest that higher gasoline prices on average lead to a relative decline in housing prices in outer suburbs, with a 1% increase in gasoline prices on average leading to a 0.004% relative reduction in home values for every additional kilometer from the CBD. The effect is larger in cities that have higher automobile ownership rates and that are less densely populated. The results are consistent with a conclusion that the rise of electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles, and working from home is likely to contribute to a lowering of geographical price differentials within Chinese cities over time.     

What happens to land price when a rural construction land market legally opens in China? A spatiotemporal analysis of Nanhai district from 2010 to 2015

Urban and rural construction land markets in China, the two formerly separated markets, are beginning to be unified in some pilot areas. So far, but little is known about the associated land market development patterns and what factors influence land market price. In order to examine the impact of urban developers' access to legal rural construction land market on land price, we analyzed the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of price trends for the rural-urban land market in Nanhai district, Guangdong Province, between 2010 and 2015. We collected 2285 land transaction data during that span and mapped price contour lines for the rural-urban development land market in the whole district by using spatial interpolation techniques. Four hedonic price models, on rural and urban construction land respectively, were developed to measure the marginal effects of land attributes on price. Results from the analysis suggest that, temporally, the prices of rural-urban development land grew rapidly between 2010 and 2015. Spatially, prices spread along a gradient from east to west, and the prices in North Nanhai district were significantly higher than those in the south. The hedonic models also suggest that land use type, lot size, and various spatial characteristics impact rural and urban land prices. Overall, this research presented here contributes our understanding of the complex nature of establishing a unified land market in China.     

房价影响因素的空间非一致性与差异化调控手段——基于Panel Data模型的实证研究

房地产价格受多种宏观经济因素的综合影响,不同城市的房价决定因素可能存在差异。文章将全国城市划分为四种级别,并选择17个一、二、三线样本城市,以货币供应量、CPI、GDP、城镇居民家庭人均可支配收入和社会固定资产投资额为解释变量,选取2002-2012年的季度数据,构建Panel Data模型,研究房价影响因素的空间非一致性,研究结果证明了空间非一致性的存在。基于此,对一、二、三线城市分别提出了差异性调控手段建议。     

基于需求角度房地产价格影响因素的实证分析

本文从需求角度分析影响房价的各因素,包括经济发展水平、城镇化水平、城镇居民收入水平和通货膨胀等,并选取一系列房地产价格的影响指标在2001-2010年的十年数据,建立31个省市房价的多种面板数据模型。对不同模型间进行选择和比较,得出最佳模型为个体固定效应模型,力图揭示各选取因素是否能够对房地产价格产生显著影响,从而确定需求层面上房价的影响因素,以及得出相应建议。     

The Rise of the Sunbelt

In the last 50 years, population and incomes have increased steadily throughout much of the Sunbelt. This paper assesses the relative contributions of rising productivity, rising demand for Southern amenities, and increases in housing supply to the growth of warm areas, using data on income, housing price, and population growth. Before 1980, economic productivity increased significantly in warmer areas and drove the population growth in those places. Since 1980, productivity growth has been more modest, but housing supply growth has been enormous. We infer that new construction in warm regions represents a growth in supply, rather than demand, from the fact that prices are generally falling relative to the rest of the country. The relatively slow pace of housing price growth in the Sunbelt, relative to the rest of the country and relative to income growth, also implies that there has been no increase in the willingness to pay for sun-related amenities. As such, it seems that the growth of the Sunbelt has little to do with the sun.     

Are local governments maximizing land revenue? Evidence from China

This paper examines how political considerations affect local officials' revenue maximization behaviors in the context of urban land conveyance in China. Particularly, we analyze government intervention based on local officials' choice of two land auction types, namely, “English auction” and “two-stage auction”. The latter presumably serves as a tool of government intervention. We aim to address the research question: “Are local governments maximizing land revenue?” The major findings are threefold. First, for cities with higher housing prices, two-stage auctions are adopted more frequently than English auctions. In addition, land parcels in these “hot” cities adopt two-stage auctions more frequently during sensitive political events, suggesting that local officials respond positively to the real estate regulation policy from central government. Second, when city leaders are more incentivized to promote economic performance, they respond less positively to rises in housing prices. Third, such interventionist behavior results in a significantly depressed land price and housing price. Despite its intention of improving public welfare, this interventionism can susceptibly cause problems of misallocation and corruption.