Heterogeneity in housing: Evidence from regional prices, monetary policy transmission and wealth distribution in China

Housing market displays a high degree of heterogeneity in China: house prices show great uneven patterns across regions; housing markets present remarkably various roles in trasmitting outside shocks to real economies; housing wealth exhibits obviously asymmetric profile in holding and distribution among households, etc. To investige these heterogeneities is the single purpose of this paper.;This paper first investigates the inblance in recent Chinese house price movements. By using a dynamic factor model to disentangle the regional common component in house price movements from city-specific characteristics, I find that the widespread but heterogeneous Chinese house price increases are more regional rather than city-specific phenomenon. Therefore, expalining the heterogeneity in house price swings now turns to explain the regional differences in response to outside economic shocks. This chapter then examins the effects of monetary policy shocks on regiona-level house prices by exploying a VAR model. The results provide plentiful evidences that regions respond differently to the monetay policy shocks.;This paper then explores the regional asymmetries in the monetary transmission mechanism in the context of housing market. By using data from four Chinese municipalities, this chapter aims to identify the effects of short-term interest rate shock on real house price movements in China, and examine the transmission mechanism of housing by analyzing whether real house price movements have significant spillover effects on consumption decisions. A SVAR model is estimated and evidence from impulse responses indicates that housing wealth does play a role but the effect is heterogeneous.;Finally this paper analyzes the highly asymmetric profile of the housing wealth distribution in China by using data from the China Household Finance Survey 2011. This part examines in detail the disparity in relationship between housing wealth holdings and demographic characteristics between urban, rural and migrant households. Inequality decomposition and empirical estimates of housing wealth function indicate that the huge housing inequality is inseparable from the urban-rural gap. This chapter confirms that the urban housing reform in 1990s formed the initial housing inequality between urban and rural households, and the rapid development of housing market after the reform has reinforced this inequality.