中国城市住房开发投资的理论与实证

Theoretical and empirical research on urban housing investment in China

近年来中国住房开发投资的增速明显放缓,其成因和未来发展趋势受到普遍关注。该文以国际文献中大量采用的住房开发投资占总产出比重(the share of housing investment as a percentage of total output,SHTO)为载体,首先基于Cobb-Douglas生产函数模型和中国287个城市在2002—2012年间数据,从理论和实证2个方面证明中国同样存在着SHTO指标随经济发展先上升后下降的所谓"SHTO规律"。其次,从土地与资本这2项城市住房产业发展的核心投入要素出发,通过理论和实证分析证明SHTO值由上升段转入下降段的拐点位置取决于土地和资本2种资源的相对稀缺程度及替代关系。测算结果表明:中国多数城市正在或者即将经历SHTO值从上升段向下降段的转变,住房开发投资增幅乃至绝对规模的下降是不可避免的趋势,中国房地产业发展模式的转型势在必行。

The growth rate of housing investment in China has been significantly lower in recent years, so there is great interest in the cause and in future trends. This paper provides both theoretical and empirical analyses of the housing investment trends in urban China, focusing on the well-known indicator of the share of housing investment as a percentage of the total output （SHTO）. Theoretical analyses based on the Cobb-Douglas production function and empirical analyses based on panel data from 287 cities between 2002 and 2012 indicate that the so-called ＂SHTO curve＂ also works in Chinese cities, which implies that SHTO would first increase with economic development and then decrease after some threshold. Further analyses suggest that the threshold in the SHTO curve is determined by the relative scarcity of land and capital. The results also suggest most of the Chinese cities are approaching, or have even passed, their thresholds in the SHTO curve. The results imply that further declines of the growth rate or even the absolute volume of housing investment in most Chinese cities is inevitable, so China＇s real estate market needs a new development model.