China's Land Market Auctions: Evidence of Corruption
Abstract
This paper studies the urban land market in China in 2003--2007. In China, all urban land is owned by the state. Leasehold use rights for land for (re)development are sold by city governments and are a key source of city revenue. Leasehold sales are viewed as a major venue for corruption, prompting a number of reforms over the years. Reforms now require all leasehold rights be sold at public auction. There are two main types of auction: regular English auction and an unusual type which we call a "two stage auction". The latter type of auction seems more subject to corruption, and to side deals between potential bidders and the auctioneer. Absent corruption, theory suggests that two stage auctions would most likely maximize sales revenue for properties which are likely to have relatively few bidders, or are "cold", which would suggest negative selection on property unobservables into such auctions. However, if such auctions are more corruptible, that could involve positive selection as city officials divert hotter properties to a more corruptible auction form. The paper finds that, overall, sales prices are lower for two stage auctions, and there is strong evidence of positive selection. The price difference is explained primarily by the fact that two stage auctions typically have just one bidder, or no competition despite the vibrant land market in Chinese cities.Download Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.Bibliographic Info
Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 15067.Length:
Date of creation: Jun 2009
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15067
Note: PE
Contact details of provider:
Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Phone: 617-868-3900
Email:
Web page: http://www.nber.org
More information through EDIRC
Related research
Keywords:Find related papers by JEL classification:
- D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure and Pricing - - - Auctions
- H71 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
- O38 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Technological Change; Research and Development; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Government Policy
- O53 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Asia including Middle East
- R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
- R31 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Housing Supply and Markets
- R52 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Land Use and Other Regulations
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2009-06-17 (All new papers)
- NEP-CNA-2009-06-17 (China)
- NEP-DEV-2009-06-17 (Development)
- NEP-TRA-2009-06-17 (Transition Economics)
- NEP-URE-2009-06-17 (Urban & Real Estate Economics)
References
References listed on IDEASPlease report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
- O. Compte & A. Lambert-Mogiliansky & T. Verdier, 2005. "Corruption and Competition in Procurement Auctions," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(1), pages 1-15, Spring.
- McAfee, R. Preston & McMillan, John., 1990.
"Bidding Rings,"
Working Papers
726, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
- McAfee, R Preston & McMillan, John, 1992. "Bidding Rings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 579-99, June.
- Lee, Lung-fei & Maddala, G S & Trost, R P, 1980. "Asymptotic Covariance Matrices of Two-Stage Probit and Two-Stage Tobit Methods for Simultaneous Equations Models with Selectivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(2), pages 491-503, March.
- Roberto Burguet & Yeon-Koo Che, 2004. "Competitive Procurement with Corruption," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 35(1), pages 50-68, Spring.
- Tan, Guofu & Yilankaya, Okan, 2006.
"Equilibria in second price auctions with participation costs,"
Journal of Economic Theory,
Elsevier, vol. 130(1), pages 205-219, September.
- Guofu Tan & Okan Yilankaya, 2005. "Equilibria in Second Price Auctions with Participation Costs," IEPR Working Papers 05.7, Institute of Economic Policy Research (IEPR).
- Tan, Guofu & Yilankaya, Okan, 2004. "Equilibria in Second Price Auctions with Participation Costs," Micro Theory Working Papers tan-04-01-24-10-08-06, Microeconomics.ca Website, revised 09 Jun 2006.
- Patrick Bajari & Lixin Ye, 2001.
"Deciding Between Competition and Collusion,"
Working Papers
01008, Stanford University, Department of Economics.
- Patrick Bajari & Lixin Ye, 2003. "Deciding Between Competition and Collusion," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 971-989, November.
- Milgrom, Paul R & Weber, Robert J, 1982.
"A Theory of Auctions and Competitive Bidding,"
Econometrica,
Econometric Society, vol. 50(5), pages 1089-1122, September.
- Paul Milgrom & Robert J. Weber, 1981. "A Theory of Auctions and Competitive Bidding," Discussion Papers 447R, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
- Vella, Francis & Verbeek, Marno, 1999. "Estimating and Interpreting Models with Endogenous Treatment Effects," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 17(4), pages 473-78, October.
- Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2001.
"Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data,"
MIT Press Books,
The MIT Press,
edition 1, volume 1, number 0262232197.
- Jeffrey M Wooldridge, 2010. "Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262232588.
- Jesse M. Shapiro, 2003.
"Is there a Daily Discount Rate? Evidence from the Food Stamp Nutrition Cycle,"
Microeconomics
0304005, EconWPA, revised 21 Apr 2003.
- Shapiro, Jesse M., 2005. "Is there a daily discount rate? Evidence from the food stamp nutrition cycle," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2-3), pages 303-325, February.
- Susan Athey & Jonathan Levin & Enrique Seira, 2008.
"Comparing Open and Sealed Bid Auctions: Evidence from Timber Auctions,"
NBER Working Papers
14590, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Susan Athey & Jonathan Levin & Enrique Seira, 2011. "Comparing open and Sealed Bid Auctions: Evidence from Timber Auctions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 126(1), pages 207-257.
- Susan Athey & Jonathan Levin & Enrique Seira, 2008. "Comparing Open and Sealed Bid Auctions: Evidence from Timber Auctions," Discussion Papers 08-012, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
- Alvin E. Roth & Axel Ockenfels, 2002.
"Last-Minute Bidding and the Rules for Ending Second-Price Auctions: Evidence from eBay and Amazon Auctions on the Internet,"
American Economic Review,
American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1093-1103, September.
- Alvin E. Roth & Axel Ockenfels, . "Last-Minute Bidding and the Rules for Ending Second-Price Auctions: Evidence from eBay and Amazon Auctions on the Internet," Papers on Strategic Interaction 2002-32, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Strategic Interaction Group.
- Goux, Dominique & Maurin, Eric, 2000. "Returns to firm-provided training: evidence from French worker-firm matched data1," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 1-19, January.
- Reize, Frank, 2001. "FIML estimation of a bivariate probit selection rule: an application on firm growth and subsidisation," ZEW Discussion Papers 01-13, ZEW - Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung / Center for European Economic Research.
- Heckman, James J, 1990. "Varieties of Selection Bias," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 313-18, May.
- James Heckman, 1997. "Instrumental Variables: A Study of Implicit Behavioral Assumptions Used in Making Program Evaluations," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 32(3), pages 441-462.
- Paulo Klinger Monteiro & Flavio Menezes, 2001.
"Corruption and auctions,"
Microeconomics
0105002, EconWPA.
- Menezes, Flavio M. & Monteiro, Paulo Klinger, 2006. "Corruption and auctions," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 97-108, February.
- Casey B. Mulligan & Yona Rubinstein, 2008. "Selection, Investment, and Women's Relative Wages Over Time," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 123(3), pages 1061-1110, August.
Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Abhijit Banerjee & Sendhil Mullainathan & Rema Hanna, 2012.
"Corruption,"
NBER Working Papers
17968, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Abhijit Banerjee & Rema Hanna & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2012. "Corruption," Working Papers id:4952, eSocialSciences.
- Banerjee, Abhijit & Hanna, Rema & Mullainathan, Sendhil, 2012. "Corruption," Working Paper Series rwp12-023, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
- Siqi Zheng & Matthew E. Kahn, 2011.
"Does Government Investment in Local Public Goods Spur Gentrification? Evidence from Beijing,"
NBER Working Papers
17002, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Siqi Zheng & Matthew E. Kahn, 2013. "Does Government Investment in Local Public Goods Spur Gentrification? Evidence from Beijing," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 41(1), pages 1-28, 03.
- Wu, Jing & Gyourko, Joseph & Deng, Yongheng, 2012.
"Evaluating conditions in major Chinese housing markets,"
Regional Science and Urban Economics,
Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 531-543.
- Jing Wu & Joseph Gyourko & Yongheng Deng, 2010. "Evaluating Conditions in Major Chinese Housing Markets," NBER Working Papers 16189, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Deng, Yongheng & Morck, Randall & Wu, Jing & Yeung, Bernard, 2011.
"Monetary and Fiscal Stimuli, Ownership Structure, and China's Housing Market,"
Ratio Working Papers
173, The Ratio Institute.
- Yongheng Deng & Randall Morck & Jing Wu & Bernard Yeung, 2011. "Monetary and Fiscal Stimuli, Ownership Structure, and China's Housing Market," NBER Working Papers 16871, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Lozano-Gracia, Nancy & Young, Cheryl & Lall, Somik V. & Vishwanath, Tara, 2013. "Leveraging land to enable urban transformation : lessons from global experience," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6312, The World Bank.
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15067For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ().
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

