Measuring the Stringency of Land Use Regulation: The Case of China's Building Height Limits

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Brueckner, Jan K.; Fu, Shihe; Gu, Yizhen; Zhang, Junfu
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Irvine; Xiamen University; Jinan University; Clark University
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/REST_a_00650
• 发表日期: 2017-10
• 页码: 663-677
• 关键词: floor area ratio; use restrictions; density; praxis; POLICY; COSTS

摘要

This paper develops a new approach for measuring the stringency of a major form of land use regulation, building height restrictions, and applies it to an extraordinary data set of land-lease transactions from China. Our theory shows that the elasticity of land price with respect to the floor area ratio (FAR), a building height indicator, is a measure of the regulation's stringency (the extent to which FAR is kept below the free-market level). Using a national sample, estimation allowing this elasticity to be city-specific shows variation in the stringency of FAR regulation across Chinese cities. Single-city estimation for Beijing shows that stringency varies with site characteristics.