Is land‐use deregulation enough to deliver housing?: The case of institutional frictions in India
研究了印度废除城市土地上限法后，由于产权界定不清等制度摩擦，住房供应并未如预期增长，反而引发大量土地诉讼，揭示了放松管制可能因制度障碍而失效。
Abstract This paper examines whether land use deregulation increases housing supply in the presence of additional institutional frictions, such as ill‐defined property rights. India's urban land ceiling (ULC) laws, which put limits on individual ownership of private vacant land in the largest cities, were repealed during the 2000s. Using a difference‐in‐difference strategy, with a panel of 201 cities, we find that the reform did not lead to housing supply growth. We posit that disputes in ownership rights for vacant parcels rendered the ULC repeal to be ineffective. The disputes led to legal battles between governments and private landowners, freezing construction on vacant land. We find that, after the repeal, the number of land‐related legal proceedings in ULC‐enacting cities may have been substantially higher than in cities where ULC was never enacted. The findings underscore the role of institutional frictions in impeding or delaying the potential benefits of deregulation.