Geography, Policy and Land Supply Date：2019-01-07 15:38:23 【Abstract】Housing supply affects aggregate productivity and growth through the effect on labor allocation. It’s essential to explore the determinants of housing supply elasticity. The research on the factors which affect housing supply elasticity in the United States focuses on urban geographical conditions and land supply policies. While in China, attention is paid to the study of macroeconomic variables and land supply, lack of research on the impact of urban geographic characteristics directly related to housing construction on urban housing supply. This article studies the relation of housing land supply with geography factor and land supply regulation. First, we construct a comprehensive measure of the area that is available for residential or commercial real estate development in prefecture- level cities using satellite-generated data on terrain elevation and presence of water bodies and studies the relationship between housing land supply and geography factor. Meanwhile, we discuss the current situation, problems of land policy and possible economics effects of future policy adjustments. The results show that it is land supply regulation rather than geography constrain that affects the housing land supply. In the development of intensive and efficient future towns, the land use structure of the first-tier cities will take inventory as the main factor to control the new construction land. In order to meet the demand brought by economic and population growth, some future policy adjustments may change the supply of collective land to meet part of the demand of urban construction. The adjustment of structure of land supply may moderate the price and rent of commodity housing, thereby reducing the financial leverage of individuals and families, stimulating domestic demand and consumption, thus promoting sustained economic growth. The land availability index constructed in this article includes 297 cities across the country, and can be utilized in the related research further.
