Suburbs or Skyscrapers? The Effect of China’s Leasing Market on Housing Decentralization
研究中国1990-2000年土地出让政策对住房分散化的影响，发现该政策导致城市核心区建设减少19.1%，郊区建设增加26.2%。
A key policy instrument fueling China’s rapid urban growth has been the urban land lease, which generates municipal revenue through the sale of land rights to developers. By linking local infrastructure investment to farmland development, the policy creates the potential for shifts in urban form. This paper examines the impact of China’s leasing policy on housing decentralization from 1990 to 2000, exploiting exogenous variation arising from a pilot phase and addressing potential selection bias with a matched difference-in-differences estimator. I find the land leasing policy resulted in a 19.1% decline in construction in the urban core and a 26.2% increase in peri-urban areas. <i></i>