作者：Erik Lichtenberg
发表时间：2010-01-06
概要：
The acquisition of new land for urban expansion is controlled by local municipal officials nominally subject to administrative restrictions from provincial and central government authorities. These officials are also influenced by the incentives created by criteria used to assess prospects for career advancement, most notably ability to promote economic growth, manage local government finances, and similar aspects of local economic performance. Infrastructure investments by provincial and central government authorities also influence these incentives indirectly via their influence on potential economic performance. This paper undertakes an empirical investigation of the factors influencing urban land expansion in China, with an emphasis on the roles of economic incentives and administrative restrictions facing local officials and on the influence of infrastructure provision. It utilizes econometric models whose specification builds on a behavioral model of land requisition decisions made by local officials in order to maximize their prospects of career advancement. The parameters of these models are estimated using a unique data set that combines official land use statistics obtained from China’s Ministry of Land and Resources with prefecture-level economic and demographic data from provincial statistical yearbooks. The models are estimated using panel data methods to control for unobserved heterogeneity across prefectures and years. In contrast to earlier studies, IV methods are used to control for endogeneity bias as warranted by formal statistical tests. The estimated parameters shed light on the structure of land acquisition and investment decision making, most notably the degree to which those decisions are determined mutually versus one-sidedly, with one party making decisions to which the opposite party accedes. They also shed light on “dynamic balance” policy has affected conversion of rural land to urban uses. Finally, they shed light on economic incentives influencing land acquisition and on the influence of transportation infrastructure on investment decisions and thus economic growth.
关键词：Infrastructure Development; Urban Expansion; Economic Incentives
