Evolving state and market relationships in the Chinese housing system: defining features and implications for housing affordability

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Copyright: Cai, Wenjie
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Abstract
It has been more than three decades since China embarked on nationwide reforms directed towards establishing a marketised system of housing provision. This reform process has had significant implications for housing consumers, especially their housing affordability, which was the starting point of this research. The investigation of the characteristics of the housing affordability problem, and of its contributory causes and consequences is guided by three research questions. What are the defining characteristics of the Chinese housing system and how have these characteristics evolved under the housing reforms since 1980? What are the responses of consumers to the way the Chinese housing system has developed? How have policy strategies that are designed to improve housing affordability been applied in China? The research questions are investigated first through using an institutional perspective to interpret the development of the Chinese housing system over the reform period. This is supported by a case study of housing outcomes and the application of housing policies in a major Chinese city, Wuhan, and a comparative study of the housing reform path and outcomes of a comparable transitionary economy, Russia. The research findings reveal the shifting power relations between the state apparatus and market institutions in the Chinese housing system as being critical to housing outcomes. The present system is characterised as having a distinctive hybrid state-market relationship, with the government exerting fundamental influence, especially through its multiple roles as direct market participant, a regulator of market activities and a major patron of affordable housing production. The significance of the research is threefold. First, the newly conceptualised examination of the Chinese housing system provides a lens to explore the structural factors driving its operation and contributing to housing problems presently. Second, the case study informs a broader understanding of the trade-offs that income-constrained Chinese households make between different dimensions of housing appropriateness, including housing affordability and adds to knowledge about the implementation of specific housing policies in China. Third, the comparison with Russia offers a means of further assessing the influence of particular institutional arrangements and power relations in national housing systems on specific housing outcomes.
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Author(s)
Cai, Wenjie
Supervisor(s)
Randolph, Bill
Milligan, Vivienne
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Publication Year
2013
Resource Type
Thesis
Degree Type
PhD Doctorate
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