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The Gradients of Power: Evidence from the Chinese Housing Market

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  • Hanming Fang
  • Quanlin Gu
  • Li-An Zhou

Abstract

Using a large, unique dataset on the Chinese housing market, we propose to measure corruption using the price differences paid by bureaucrat buyers and non-bureaucrat buyers in the housing market. We find that the housing price paid by bureaucrat buyers is on average 1.05 percentage points lower than non-bureaucrat buyers, after controlling for a full set of characteristics of buyers, houses and mortgage loans. More interestingly, we find that the bureaucrat price discounts exhibit interesting gradients with respect to their hierarchical ranks, the criticality of their government agencies to real estate developers, and geography. We argue that the bureaucrat price discounts and the gradients of these discounts are unlikely to be driven by alternative explanations, thus they are evidence of corruption and measures of the market value of government power.

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  • Hanming Fang & Quanlin Gu & Li-An Zhou, 2014. "The Gradients of Power: Evidence from the Chinese Housing Market," NBER Working Papers 20317, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20317
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    4. Fang, Hanming & Gu, Quanlin & Zhou, Li-An, 2019. "The gradients of power: Evidence from the Chinese housing market," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 32-52.
    5. Zhao, Renjie & Chen, Jie & Feng, Chen & Zhong, Shihu, 2020. "The impact of anti-corruption measures on land supply and the associated implications: The case of China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    6. Carlos Garriga & Aaron Hedlund & Yang Tang & Ping Wang, 2023. "Rural-Urban Migration, Structural Transformation, and Housing Markets in China," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 413-440, April.
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    8. Yongheng Deng & Jing Wu & Yang Tang & ping wang, 2019. "Spatial Misallocation in Chinese Housing and Land Markets," 2019 Meeting Papers 1351, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Klaus W. Deininger & Thea Hilhorst & Zevenbergen,Jaap & Nkurunziza,Emmanuel, 2025. "Capitalizing on Digital Transformation to Enhance the Effectiveness of Property Institutions : Conceptual Background and Evidence from 85 Countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 11100, The World Bank.
    10. Haoyuan Ding & Hanming Fang & Shu Lin & Kang Shi, 2020. "Equilibrium Consequences of Corruption on Firms: Evidence from China’s Anti-Corruption Campaign," NBER Working Papers 26656, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Yongqiang Chu & Weida Kuang & Daxuan Zhao & Xiaoxia Zhou, 2024. "Inside job: Evidence from the Chinese housing market," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(1), pages 214-233, January.
    12. John M. Griffin & Clark Liu & Tao Shu, 2022. "Is the Chinese Anticorruption Campaign Authentic? Evidence from Corporate Investigations," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(10), pages 7248-7273, October.
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    17. Qian Wang & Yanan Wang & Wei Chen & Xue Zhou & Minjuan Zhao, 2021. "Factors affecting industrial land use efficiency in China: analysis from government and land market," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(7), pages 10973-10993, July.
    18. Kezhou Xiao, 2024. "Becoming global billionaires from mainland China: 2004–2018," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 62(2), pages 753-773, February.
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    20. Ji, Xiaoqing & Liu, Shuai & Lang, Jingyi, 2022. "Assessing the impact of officials' turnover on urban economic efficiency: From the perspective of political promotion incentive and power rent-seeking incentive," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 82(PB).
    21. Yiyuan Ma & Youzhi Xiao, 2022. "The Substitution Effect of Chinese Anti-Corruption “Alcohol Ban”," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-13, June.

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    JEL classification:

    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure

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