DENG Lan, University of Michigan

China’s real estate development industry has experienced a major transformation in the past two decades, evolving from a small sector dominated by state-owned enterprises to a trillion-dollar industry populated by a large number of private firms.  Recent evidence points to a growing concentration among the country’s largest development firms. Despite the importance of the real estate development industry to the Chinese economy, there is little scholarly research on the causes and consequences of its changing composition. This talk will examine how the structure of China’s real estate development industry has changed in the last two decades, what factors have been driving those changes, and what these changes mean for local housing production. More specifically, using data collected for 35 major Chinese cities, the study will present evidence on how China’s public land ownership system has shaped the organization of the real estate development industry.