China’s Homeownership-Oriented Housing Policy: An Examination of Two Programs Using Survey Data from Beijing

The paper uses data from a household survey in Beijing to explore the impact of China’s two primary homeownership-oriented housing policies: the Housing Provident Fund (Zhufang Gongjijin) compulsory savings scheme and the subsidized construction of ‘affordable housing’ (Jingji Shiyong Fang). With respect to the former it attempts to establish whether owners that are beneficiaries of the program purchase larger homes and enjoy more living space per person than other owners. Descriptive results support these effects but cannot be considered conclusive given the multitude of alternative factors driving housing consumption in Beijing that cannot be controlled for with our dataset. With respect to the Jingji Shiyong Fang, the paper uses a simple mortgage simulation to investigate whether households in varying income classes can purchase a unit through the program. Results indicate that although the subsidy is substantial – roughly halving the purchase price per square meter – the typical middle-income and lower-middle income households that are the program’s intended beneficiaries would still find these units out of reach.