Economics
Measuring the stringency of land use regulation: The case of China's building height limits
Document Type
Article
Abstract
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 cityspecific shows variation in the stringency of FAR regulation across Chinese cities. Single-city estimation for Beijing shows that stringency varies with site characteristics.
Publication Title
Review of Economics and Statistics
Publication Date
10-2017
Volume
99
Issue
4
First Page
663
Last Page
677
ISSN
0034-6535
DOI
10.1162/REST_a_00650
Keywords
land use regulation, floor area ratio, China
Repository Citation
Brueckner, Jan K.; Fu, Shihe; Gu, Yizhen; and Zhang, Junfu, "Measuring the stringency of land use regulation: The case of China's building height limits" (2017). Economics. 29.
https://commons.clarku.edu/faculty_economics/29
