How do Local Governments Influence Urban Population Size:A Land Supply Perspective
This paper investigates the relationship between local government land supply and urban population size based on urban panel data for 288 prefecture-level cities from 2002-2011 and 259 prefecture-level cities from the 2005 and 2010 censuses.It is found that for every 10%increase in the proportion of industrial land to construction land,the urban population size increases by 5.3%-5.9%;for every 10%increase in the proportion of residential land to construction land,the urban population size decreases by 4%-6%.A two-stage least squares(2SLS)analysis using the degree of fiscal decentralization as an instrumental variable presents consistent results.Mechanistic studies suggest that this differentiated supply of land led by local governments acts on urban population size by influencing the price of commercial housing and thus urban population size on the one hand,and by influencing settlement patterns on the other.The results of differentiating different educational groups and regions show that:land policies have a greater impact on people with high educational attainment;the closer to the port,the higher the share of industrial land will bring more population inflow and thus increase the city size;compared to the central and western regions,the share of industrial land in the eastern regions will significantly promote population inflow,while the effect of the share of residential land is not significant.This paper provides further theoretical and empirical evidence to address the"land follows people"policy for coordinated regional economic development.
urban population sizelocal governmentindustrial landcommercial and residential land
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
