Study On The Driving Mechanism Of Green Housing Development In Chinese Cities

Promoting green housing development is an important approach to improve the effectiveness and quality of housing supply,and to facilitate the supply-side reform of real estate industry.It is also the key to implement the green development concept and to improve the urban habitability.Although the Chinese government has enacted a wide variety of policies to encourage the development of green housing,green housing still only accounts for a small proportion of incremental housing supply.Therefore,it is crucial to investigate the driving mechanism of green housing development,thus providing a solid theoretical basis and strategic guidance to support the sound development of green housing in China.Based on a systematic review of the foreign and domestic existing literature,a theoretical framework with a model is established to analyze the driving mechanism of green housing development.Then,from the three aspects of market drivers,policy incentives,and information nudges,empirical analyses are conducted using several unique datasets to explore the price premium of green housing and the economic feasibility for major market participants,the influence factors and rules of green housing supply,as well as the impact of information nudges on green housing demand.This dissertation concludes in the following findings.(1)The officially green-certified housing projects enjoy a significant price premium of 6.9% compared to their non-certified counterparts on the newly-built housing market.Such a price premium is very likely to be sufficient to compensate for the green incremental costs.Residents pay this price premium not only for the operation cost saving,but also for the improvement of the built environment.The green certification from the government is effective as a reliable market signal.The market drivers,which influence the green price premium,also significantly stimulate the green housing supply.Especially,the factors related to energy saving potentials have played an important role in the promotion of high-rated green housing.(2)Among a variety of policy incentives,the preferential land policies and demand-side subsidies are proved most effective and efficient in stimulating green housing supply.Subsidies for green housing developers from local governments play an important role in initiating local green housing practice from scratch,and promoting the supply of high-rated green housing.In addition,the government's green practice in public housing presents substantial spillover effects,implying that governments can influence the building sector by playing an exemplary role.(3)The mitigation of information asymmetry has an important influence on residents' demand for green housing and their willingness-to-pay(WTP).Providing non-green housing residents with the comparison of the operation indicators of built environment between their current housing and the adjacent green housing,their WTP for green housing will increase by 34%.Furthermore,educating residents with the benefits of green housing in operation cost saving and increased comfort and health can increase their WTP by 28%~37%,with the information of increased comfort and health showing a stronger impact.Some policy implications are derived from above findings.(1)In the context of tight regulation and control on the housing market,green housing should be differentiated in terms of financial,tax and trade restriction policies to increase the economic feasibility of green housing for market participants,thus inspiring the endogenous driving force of green housing development.(2)The limited public funding should be allocated in priority to subsidize residents' green housing purchase and tenancy,to support the Research & Development on complete sets of green technologies,and to facilitate developers' application for operation stage green certification.(3)Promote the market information symmetry of green housing by providing education and feedbacks on the comparison between green and non-green housing to residents,thus nudging residents toward purchasing or leasing green housing.(4)Promote the green public housing demonstration to guide green housing supply,and improve the built environment of green housing to enhance its attractiveness to residents.