The informational dimension of real estate development: A case of a “positive non-interventionist” application of the Coase Theorem

Informed by Coase's (1988) idea that state rules can enlarge a market, Rosa's (2006) idea of information as a private good usable as memes, and Yu's (1981) economics of patent pooling, Schuster's (2005) proposition that government can collect and distribute information as an active tool to influence actors, this paper advances the viewpoint that real estate development forms sign structures for adding information that enhances the values of a site under strategically selected property names. The ideal case of Hong Kong's planning and development by contract is used and compared to the practice in Mainland China to demonstrate these ideas with special reference to its open land registration and information systems, which sell important information memes and the names of properties that can be protected by trademark law.     

Private land use for public housing projects: The Influence of a Government Announcement on Housing Markets in Hong Kong

Insufficient land supply and housing shortage limit the development in Hong Kong. To tackle such obstacles, the Hong Kong government launched a new housing initiative in June 2018, that is, to reallocate private housing sites for public housing in East Kowloon. Yet, the initiative may give rise to two important questions: (1) how does this initiative affect the housing searching behaviour in the housing market; and (2) in what way should the new public housing be developed, if it is to be compatible with the host neighborhood - by the public sector, or with the participation of the private sector. Little is known about the possible impacts of such an initiative.To fill this research gap, this paper adopts an improved spatial econometric model by incorporating spatial and temporal information to explore the above two questions. Our results indicate that (1) the announcement of the initiative leads to a 5% change in time-on-market for private housing in East Kowloon; (2) people in private property prefer more to live near public housing developed by the private sector. These findings somehow echo the invasion theory of urban change: Neighborhood changes in private housing areas will spill-over to adjacent urban areas.     

Recent trends in the supply of land for industrial development in Hong Kong: A case study in planned decentralization

Summary

Although free enterprise remains the dominant characteristic of the Hong Kong economy, new land supply is controlled largely by the Hong Kong Government. Rather than establish a detailed system of development plans and controls, the Government has been able to achieve substantial decentralization of housing and industry through the location of new land release. The evidence suggests that industrial developers have been willing to build and industrialists to locate in decentralized areas, especially those close to the main urban areas. Furthermore, although vacancy rates are generally higher and rental levels lower in decentralized compared to centralized locations, the extent of the differences over time is not as pronounced as might be expected. Indeed, the overall strength of demand for industrial land, other than in the recent slump, has necessitated special policies to protect land for low‐density industrial users in decentralized locations. As planned decentralization approaches completion, attention is beginning to focus upon redevelopment in the older urban areas and upon the consequences of the Sino‐British Joint Declaration of 1985. Overall, recent land policies in Hong Kong offer the British observer some useful indications of the impact of government intervention in land use on existing property markets.     

Supply side constraints in the Israeli housing market—The impact of state owned land

House prices in Israel have risen since 2008 by as much as 98%. Much of this increase is attributed to low levels of housing supply and housing supply elasticities. In Israel land is frequently owned by the state. This results in heavy government involvement in the housing market through the control of land supply via land tenders. This paper estimates the impact of state owned land on the Israeli housing market focusing on these unusual conditions of land supply. A model for the creation of new housing units is proposed. This incorporates land tenders, enabling the estimation of housing supply dynamics with an accurate measure of public land supply. The model is tested using regional panel data which facilitates the dynamic estimation of national and local supply elasticities and regional spillovers. The paper uses novel data sources resulting in a panel of 45 spatial units over a span of 11 years (2002–2012). Due to the nonstationary nature of the data, spatial panel cointegration methods are used. The empirical results yield estimates of housing supply price elasticities and elasticities with respect to land supply. Results show that housing supply is positively impacted by governmental decisions but the impact is low. Supply elasticity with regard to government land tenders stands at around 0.05 over the short run and 0.08 over the long run. Government policy of offering land in low demand areas and fixing minimum-price tendering does not seem to affect housing supply. Policy implications point to the need for more sensitive management of the delicate balance between public and private source of land in order to mitigate the excesses of demand shocks.     

Residential housing bubbles in Hong Kong: identification and explanation based on GSADF test and dynamic probit model

We aim to investigate whether the current high housing price in Hong Kong contains a bubble and to identify the causes of such housing bubble if it exists by combining the generalised sup augmented Dickey–Fuller (GSADF) test and dynamic probit models. Empirical results indicate that the current Hong Kong housing market contains a bubble, and it’s the investors’ speculative demand and the increase of monetary supply that lead to the housing bubbles in Hong Kong. Moreover, speculative investors would prefer the mass markets to the luxury ones considering the outstanding performance of the former. Such preference would contribute to more bubbles in the mass markets than in the luxury ones. In view of these, Hong Kong Government should retrospect the linked exchange rate system and be alert to the impacts of the US monetary policies on Hong Kong residential market. To offset the housing bubble, a targeted and effective approach to the Hong Kong Government is to constrict the speculative demand from investors particularly in the mass markets.     

Land use regulation and urban land value: Evidence from China

Land use regulation has always been regarded as one of the most crucial means of macro-control of urban growth, which can affect a city’s land values directly and further determine related urban economic well-being. Since the New Type Urbanization Strategy proposed by the government in 2014, China’s mode of urban growth has been transformed from addressing “quantity” to “quality" in the urbanization process. In this case, the regulation of land use by the Chinese government plays a more important role in urban growth. With their planned land regulatory scheme, the various instruments employed by Chinese governments have quite different mechanisms influencing land prices. However, there are no rigorous studies focusing on the land use regulation system and its impact on land values to date, particular in China. This study seeks to explore how land use regulation affects urban land values through the systematic lens. We summarize the main land use regulatory instruments based on the analysis of China’s planned land use system and urban land banking system, including the construction land quota, constraints on the allowed floor area ratio (FAR) of each land transaction parcel, and land supply restrictions. A new dataset based on land transaction data from 2007 to 2016 that covers 286 prefectural cities from the country’s coastal, central, and western regions is used in the empirical analysis. The results show that the effects of the floor area ratio (FAR) on land values are significant and positive, with the residential and commercial land supply ratio being a key factor. Moreover, the results imply that the effects of constraints on FAR and commercial land supply vary between regions. These findings indicate that the Chinese land market is considerably distorted by excessive administrative interventions by local governments, in the stage of urban transition guided, the capable regulatory instruments could play an important role in adjusting urban land prices and hence impact on urban growth.     

The impact of anti-corruption measures on land supply and the associated implications: The case of China

The allocation of land resources is a crucial issue in sustainable urban development, but it is subject to the vagaries of public governance. By using the prosecution of corrupt local leaders as the shock event, and exploring the data on sacked officials and land transfers in prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2016, we analyse the changes in the supply of land in response to the ousting of key local officials for corruption. The estimations derived through the identification strategy of the DID framework show that both the volume and value of land sales dropped significantly after the local officials’ ousting, with the value of total land sales reacting to a much greater extent. We also found the reduction of land supply was mainly from commercial and residential land but a greater supply of land for public use following the local leaders’ ousting, accompanied with an increase in the level of marketisation in the supply of land and a reduction in cheap transfers of industrial land. In addition, the heterogeneity of the effect across the rank and type of official was investigated, and the long-term persistence of this effect was confirmed. By showing that anti-corruption measures have a persistent disciplinary effect on officials’ subsequent land supply strategy, this paper underscores that the quality of public governance profoundly influences the functioning of the land market.     

小产权房治理与《土地管理法》修改

研究目的:对《土地管理法》的修改和小产权房的治理提出建议。研究方法:现象溯因法,综合分析法。研究结果:只有解决制度障碍,通过合理的制度设计允许集体建设用地用于商品房开发和允许宅基地使用权有条件对外流转,才能从根本上治理小产权房。研究结论:正在修订的《土地管理法》不应禁止集体建设用地用于房地产开发,应允许宅基地使用权在一定条件下对外流转。     

Incomplete privatization of public rental housing in Hong Kong

The delineation of the land occupied by Public Rental Housing (PRH) is a contentious issue in worldwide debates over PRH privatization. Heated arguments hold that governments should retain the occupied land for mitigating inequalities that privatization might provoke. Dual-role policies arise concerning both efficiency and equality. This research seeks to decode actual consequences of such policies based on their implementation in Hong Kong, with a specific focus on the Tenants Purchase Scheme (TPS). Intended to enliven PRH within needy families, the TPS policy instead resulted in dormant resale of privatized PRH with adverse effects on target groups. Hypotheses on how the TPS policy has affected housing resale are developed based on property rights and searching theories and tested against empirical data. This research offers a theoretical basis for exploring solutions to the unanticipated aftermath of Hong Kong’s PRH privatization and provides information for other governments on implications of privatization strategies.     

住房用地二元体制对公共租赁房产业化发展的影响研究

研究目的:研究出让与划拨两种不同性质住房用地对公共租赁房产业化发展的影响,探讨用地制度改革以推进公共租赁房可持续发展。研究方法:归纳分析法与规范分析方法。研究结果:在住房用地二元体制下,地方政府不具有持续扩大公共租赁房有效供给的内在动力,房地产企业市场化开发的业务模式无法支撑公共租赁房产业化发展。通过用地制度调整和相关政策设计,可降低完全产权公共租赁房的开发成本,吸引社会资金进入投资开发领域,形成地方政府、房地产企业、居民家庭多赢的公共租赁房发展模式。研究结论:通过住房用地制度改革与相关配套政策调整,可实现在地方政府主导下以市场而非行政方式推进公共租赁房产业的可持续发展。     

Rural land system reforms in China: History,issues, measures and prospects

Land system reform (LSR) helps to protect farmers' rights and interests and national food security. China is a country dominated by agriculture but insufficient arable land resources. The contradiction between man and land is prominent. To alleviate the man-land contradiction, the Chinese government has carried out a series of LSRs, especially in the past half century. Extensive and in-depth studies have been done on the process and stage characteristics of China's LSRs, but the systematic analysis on the necessity, problems and key measures to deepen the land system reform is still insufficient. Based on a systematic review of the history of the evolution of China's LSRs, this study firstly analyzed the key issues and new challenges existing in or arising from China's land system, then put forward the necessity of deepening the reform of land system, and discussed specific measures taken to deepen the reform of land system in China at present and finally pointed out the future LSR’s direction. The results show that China's rural LSR has gone through five stages in general since 1949. The key problems existing or arising from the current land system in China include unclear subject of land property right, serious inefficient utilization of land resources, rapid farmland conversion and conflict between farmers’ interests and land system. The dual land system in urban and rural areas has severely restricted the integration of social and economic development in this country. The Chinese government is actively promoting the reforms of rural agricultural land, collective operating construction land and homestead to further remove the dual institutional barriers that hinder the establishment of an integrated land trading market. The vision is good, but there is still a long way to go for China's LSR. The direction of China's rural LSR is to make the property rights relationship clearer, the farmland rights more complete, the transfer transactions more market-oriented and the property rights’ protection more equal. Deepening the rural LSRs is helpful to improve the efficiency of land resource utilization, safeguard the rights and interests of farmers, promote the coordination of human-land relationship, and inject new vitality and momentum into rural revitalization. Cooperative promotion of land resource capitalization reform and household registration system reform is the key area of land system reform in China in the future.     

论地方政府在房地产调控中的多重博弈

从耕地保护、与中央政府、开发商、购房者和银行关系等五个方面分析地方政府在房地产市场调控中面临的多重博弈,阐述地方政府在房地产调控中面临的“囚徒困境”,进而提出了完善地方政府绩效考核体系和土地出让收益分配机制、加大保障性住房供应力度等若干对策建议.     

Spatial restructuring and the logic of industrial land redevelopment in urban China: I. Theoretical considerations

We harness the game-theoretic approach to propose a new conceptual framework for industrial land redevelopment research. Stemming from Harvey's notion of “urbanization of capital” and Foucault's study on “power relations”, we analyze the driver and regulator of urban spatial restructuring. We contend that the redevelopment of industrial land should be re-conceptualized as the competition for land rent gap or land rent surplus. Land redevelopment in urban China could be theoretically interpreted as multiple games between the original land-user and local government or the alliance between local government and new developers. Different equilibriums of games lead to various models/types of redevelopment.     

保障房建设用地方式比较及改革的初步设想

因多种保障房形式并存,且供地方式存在差异化,对使用年限、价格（租金）、建筑面积等方面的要求也不同,对能否上市交易和退出机制的规定大相径庭,导致保障房建设中存在各种各样的矛盾和问题,主要表现在：（1）租赁型和出售型的保障房之间对接困难,不能体现效率原则;（2）不同类型保障房在享有土地增值收益方面大不相同,不能体现公平原则。辽宁省实例验证进一步表明,我国保障房建设改革势在必行。当前,应统一保障房建设用地方式,实现保障房的土地权益均衡化,以提高保障房的资源配置效率,实现社会公平。     

我国农村居民点整理潜力测算方法研究

论文探讨了农村居民点整理潜力测算的新方法。新的潜力测算方法首先按照各地农民生活与生产的实际需要确定户均宅基地标准，然后以宅基地用地占农村居民点的比例进行修正，估算出规划期末实际需要的农村居民点用地面积，从而合理确定农村居民点的整理潜力。     

Land for welfare in China

Drawing on firsthand observations, Party and government documents, and survey data, this study examines the causes and processes of the land for welfare policy in China. The implementation of the land for welfare program cannot be understood in isolation from the profound urban–rural gap in the land property rights regime and social welfare provision in China. The dual land tenure system allows local officials to generate revenue by expropriating rural land, which, to rural households, functions as a social insurance as well as an income-generating property. In the process of land requisition, land-losing villagers are provided with social welfare benefits to compensate for their loss of their land's insurance function. Such provision, however, is not developed out of the local governments’ benign intention, but their strategic reaction to the central government's development program that combines rural social welfare provision with a land rewarding system, which provides an opportunity for local officials to gain more land, a valuable asset for local governments. The provision of social welfare benefits is selective: affected rural households are provided with welfare benefits that are less costly to the local government, typically in the form of a pension insurance.     

中国商住用地价格倒挂及其产生机理

研究目的：剖析中国商住用地价格倒挂现象产生的机理,为中国住宅用地制度改革提供建议。研究方法：数据统计法,比较分析法。研究结果：无论从房地产价格还是土地价格看,近年中国商住用地价格倒挂现象普遍,商业房地产比住宅房地产价格低15% — 40%;产生这一现象的原因主要有：工业用地的低价过量供应挤占了住宅用地的供应量,住宅用地比重长期偏低,住宅用地内部各类土地供应结构失衡,住宅用地的供给不足加剧了地价和房价上涨的预期,住宅用地承担了过多的为地方财政做贡献的重任。研究结论：建立多层次的住房保障体系,细分住宅用地类型,加大住宅用地特别是保障性住房用地的供给力度。     

Industrial land use planning and the growth of knowledge industry: Location pattern of knowledge-intensive services and their determinants in the Seoul metropolitan area

As the industrial structure is reorganized from manufacturing to one that is knowledge-based, the knowledge-intensive service (KIS) industry has grown steadily. Since KIS industries make a significant contribution to regional competitiveness through innovative activities, it is important to examine what factors determine their location. Since KIS industries reportedly concentrate in and around large cities, wherein the land price is high and vacant land is scarce, land use planning is expected to play an important role in the location of KIS. Therefore, this study analyzes the location patterns of the KIS industry and the factors contributing to the industry’s growth in the Seoul metropolitan area, with a focus on land use planning. According to the result, KIS industries tend to locate in traditional KIS centers in downtown Seoul and new centers around Seoul. While the growth of KIS workers in the traditional KIS centers was stagnant, that in the new centers was much higher. Concerning the factors that affect the growth of KIS employment, the factors related to land use planning significantly influenced the growth of KIS activities. Among them, semi-industrial zone and housing site development areas were influential due to the exclusion of residential land use and land use regulation changes that allowed the development of the knowledge industry center. This shows that exclusionary land use control and flexible measures should be properly applied to accommodate new industrial demands and create space for urban employment.     

基于不同住房属性视角的土地供应规模对房价的影响

研究目的：基于住房消费品和投资品的双重属性视角分析住宅用地供应规模对房地产市场的差异化影响。研究 方法：理论分析、固定效应面板回归模型、门槛回归模型。研究结果：（1）上一年住宅用地供应面积增加 1% 可使当年 住房竣工面积显著增加 0.17%,弱于房地产投资资金对住房竣工面积所产生的 0.25% 的提升作用,该结果一定程度上 验证了住宅用地供应与住房供给之间存在生产函数渠道的影响路径;（2）基于实际房价与租金还原房价的偏离程度测 算,发现不同房地产市场投资热度下,住宅用地供应对房价影响存在双重门槛效应,门槛值分别为 2.05 和 2.92;（3）低 投资热度下,上一年住宅用地供应规模的增加可显著降低当年的房价,而高投资热度下则会起到推高房价的作用。研 究结论：住房作为消费品和投资品,存在不同的价格机制和供求规律。当住房市场以投资品属性为主导时,需求曲线 向上的刚性走势违反了一般的商品需求规律,供给曲线的右移将导致均衡价格越来越高。