Empirical Study on the Relationship between Economic Development and Urban Construction Land in China: Based on the Panel Data of Provinces

The panel data of 31 provinces, cities and autonomous regions was used in order to test the relationship between economic development and urban land. The result showed that the sequences of economic development and urban land were in accordance with first order integration. Secondly, there was cointegration between economic development and urban land and the cointegration equation illustrated that 10% of increase in GDP per capita would drive 4.94% of expansion in city construction land. Thirdly, according to error correction model, economic development is the Granger cause of urban land expansion in the long term while the reverse relationship was not proved. In short-term, economic development and urban land expansion were Granger causes of each other. The long-term equilibrium can only regulate the short-term imbalance of urban land, arriving at 33.83%. Therefore, the government should formulate related policies to encourage real estate developers and enterprises to increase land utilization efficiency, strictly control the increase of urban land and regulate short-term imbalance.