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China’s Housing Bubble, Infrastructure Investment, and Economic Growth

Author

Listed:
  • Shenzhe Jiang

    (Peking University)

  • Jianjun Miao

    (Boston University)

  • Yuzhe Zhang

    (Texas A&M University)

Abstract

China’s housing prices have been growing rapidly over the past few decades, despite low growth in rents. We study the impact of housing bubbles on China’s economy, based on the understanding that local governments use land-sale revenue to fuel infrastructure investment. We calibrate our model to the Chinese data over the period 2003-2013 and find that our calibrated model can match the declining capital return and GDP growth, the average housing price growth, and the rising infrastructure to GDP ratio in the data. We conduct two counterfactual experiments to estimate the impact of a bubble collapse and a property tax.

Suggested Citation

  • Shenzhe Jiang & Jianjun Miao & Yuzhe Zhang, 2019. "China’s Housing Bubble, Infrastructure Investment, and Economic Growth," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series WP2020-005, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:bos:wpaper:wp2020-005
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Housing Bubble; Infrastructure; Economic Growth; Chinese Economy; Property Tax;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O16 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • P24 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies - - - National Income, Product, and Expenditure; Money; Inflation
    • R21 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Housing Demand
    • R31 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Housing Supply and Markets

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