高房价挤出了谁?——基于中国流动人口的微观视角

Who is Crowded Out by High Housing Prices? Evidence from Microdata in China

本文基于2014-2016年中国流动人口动态监测调查数据,考察已经"进入"城市的劳动力家庭是否"住下来",从个人层面研究房价如何影响劳动力家庭的居住决策,发现高房价会增强劳动力家庭的流动意愿,特别是挤出那些没有购房的、高技能水平的劳动力。尽管公共服务对高房价有负向调节作用,挤出效应在大城市表现得尤为显著。进一步地,打算继续流动的劳动力选择流向已购房产所在地的概率更大,而住房的财富效应使得劳动力更倾向于流向其他城市,特别是省会级及以上城市。

In the last four decades since China's opening-up,labor migration and reallocation across cities have made the Chinese economy a great success.However,housing prices in the top 35 cities in China,which are the main host cities for migrants,has risen faster than income growth.Therefore,migrants face a trade-off between local amenities and living expenses due to housing booms.The phenomenon of "fleeing from first-tier cities such as Beijing,Shanghai and Guangzhou" continues. China offers us a unique laboratory to study migration and location choice decisions,which are separated under the hukou system.Incremental improvements to the hukou system eliminate institutional barriers,allowing labor to leave low-productivity sectors,migrate between sectors and regions,and enter high-productivity sectors (Cai,2017).The National Development and Reform Commission issued a notice on the "key tasks for new urbanization in 2019" in March 2019,emphasizing the need to further remove obstacles to the reallocation of hukou and to increase the provision of public services to all workers.Moreover,there are large variations across Chinese cities in terms of housing booms and public services.Using the data of the China Migrants Dynamic Survey (CMDS) from 2014 to 2016,we examine the effects of high housing prices and local public services on relocation decisions in China,who is crowded out,and where these migrants go. CMDS is a national representative survey conducted by the National Health Commission (NHC).The sample region covers all prefecture-level cities in China to ensure the provincial representativeness of the sample.The sample size is about 200,000 households each year,with detailed information on the migrants' living conditions,the available services in their host cities,their income and expenditure,and their willingness to move.While the China Labor-force Dynamic Survey (CLDS) is used to identify the effects of housing prices on actual in-migration (Zhang et al., 2017),this new dataset can provide more empirical support for identifying the effects of housing prices and public services on the willingness of workers to move.Compared with actual migration,the willingness of workers to move is more sensitive to housing prices and may react before their actual migration. This study offers several new results.Although local public services may encourage migrants to stay in their host cities,high housing prices increase their willingness to move.Extending the literature (Foote,2016;Zabel,2012),we find that the crowding out effect is especially strong for highly skilled workers who do not buy a house.The results are robust after controlling for potential measurement errors and sample selection bias.Workers with different immigration status,generations,and family structures react differently to rising housing prices.Those who migrated for non-work-related reasons,who migrated across provinces,and whose parents migrated with their child/children are more sensitive to housing prices.The increase in housing prices first encourages migrants to stay,then crowds out migrant workers after housing prices exceed a certain threshold,higher than the average price of housing across cities.As housing booms are more significant in large cities,the crowding out effect is stronger there.In addition,we analyze the relocation choices of migrants who are willing to leave their host cities and find that affordable housing is a major factor affecting their relocation choice.For migrants who own a home in another city,the wealth effect increases the probability of moving,especially to provincial cities. The crowding out effect of high housing prices,especially on highly skilled workers,may hinder local economic growth in the long term.Local governments should stabilize housing prices and increase household income to encourage migrants to "settle down" in the city.For skilled workers without a house in their host city,local governments should use various methods,such as price subsidy,tax reduction,and public housing,to provide them with affordable housing.