Urban Economic Reform and Public-Housing Investment in China

Abstract

The authors examine the characteristics and determinants of urban public-housing investment in the People's Republic of China. After discussing the characteristics of the state-controlled urban housing sector through the 1970s and the market-oriented reform in the 1980s to commodity urban housing, they use regression analysis to estimate the effects of several factors on urban public-housing investment in 1984 and 1987. The role of the state in housing investment in China's cities weakened, and the effect of reform-related factors became stronger. State redistribution maintained a stronger effect on public-housing investment in inland cities than in coastal cities, where deeper market-oriented reform further dampened the state's influence on public-housing investment.