Land supply and housing prices : empirical studies of Hong Kong and Guangzhou

Abstract

It is widely accepted that land supply plays an important role in restricting housing supply and adjusting housing price level. This study aims to explore the dynamic relationship and causality between land supply and housing price with the cases of Hong Kong and Guangzhou, which are two close relative Chinese cities under the framework of ‘One country, two systems’. This study employs the vector auto-regression (VAR), Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) and Granger Causality test to disentangle the complicated relationship, long-run and short-run, between land supply and housing price. Besides, the dynamic analysis of VAR and VECM are conducted using innovation accounting methods such as impulse response function (IRF) and variance decomposition (VDC).

The empirical results show that the land supply and housing price are co-integrated in Hong Kong during the sample period between 2001 and 2011, and a long-run unilateral causality is confirmed from housing price to land supply for Hong Kong. Regarding Guangzhou, although there is no co-integration between land supply and housing price during 2001 and 2011, Granger causality from land supply to housing price shows a time lag of 10 quarters. These findings imply the relative efficient market economy in the Hong Kong housing market compared to Guangzhou, which is also consistent with the differences in land leasing systems and housing markets in Hong Kong and Guangzhou.

This study not only sheds light on the discrepancies of land leasing systems and housing market mechanism between capitalism and socialism, but also provides implications for policy makers in formulating strategy to improve housing affordability.