The Consumption-Stimulating Effect of Public Rental Housing in China

China's public rental policy creates opportunities for poor households to rent apartments at low rental prices.In addition to such an impact,we argue that public rental housing increases the purchasing power of the poor and therefore enhances the income elasticity of consumption,i.e.,the percentage of consumption increment due to a 1 percent increase in income.Based on a nationwide dataset from China,the Chinese Household Income Project 2018,we find that public rental housing significantly increases the marginal impact of household disposable income on consumption.Specifically,our analysis suggests that public rental apartments could increase the income elasticity of consumption demand by 18 percent among all rental households and by 24 percent among rental households with below-average income.We also find that the effect of public rental housing on income elasticity of consumption is stronger for service consumption than for nonservice consumption.These results suggest that a well designed public rental policy could not only promote consumption in favor of the service industry but also alleviate the undesirable consequences of the unbalanced consumption structure caused by income inequality.

Poverty Decentralization or Reconcentration: An Empirical Study of the Effects of Collected Public Rental Housing in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province

Based on the supply-side reform objective, it is a great transformation of housing welfare measures in China to collect private unoccupied houses as public rental housing instead of building new ones. Through an empirical study of the Collecting Houses as Public Rental Housing Program in Changzhou, this paper finds that the collected houses is relatively scattered in the city, which is beneficial to avoiding over-centralization and marginalization of the poor families. However, it has resulted in poverty reconcentration in some old communities, probably further leading to spatial solidification of the poor as well as a further decline of old communities. Therefore it may not effectively solve the housing problems of the poor population by providing this alternative public rental housing, which is collected according to economic efficiency. Accordingly, the paper argues that it is necessary to reinforce community development and to renovate the declined communities in time, as an important supplement to housing welfare improvement.

MLR: Scheme of Establishing Pilots for Rental Housing Construction on Collective-Owned Construction Land Use in 11 Cities Approved

On Jan.25,2018,the Ministry of Land and Resources(MLR)declared that the Scheme of Establishing Pilots for Rental Housing Construction on Collective-Owned Construction Land Use in 11Cities including Shenyang,Nanjing,Hangzhou,etc.,has been approved.MLR emphasized that the pilot areas should follow the principle of house for living,not for speculation.And according