Estimating Elasticity of Substitution between Land and Capital in a Median City (City of Dorud as a Case Study)

Some unique characteristics of housing goods such as spatial dependency, heterogeneity and durability make housing market analysis different from ordinary goods. However principles in ordinary goods market such as profit maximization are used by developer in housing market. one of the housing market characteristic is that land as a most important input for housing services production has low demand elasticity because of its scarcity. This always makes housing services developer in housing market to substitute capital (construction materials) instead of land. In economics, for demonstrating this kind of substitution, elasticity of substitution is used. Since land has a local market and the intensity of scarcity in cities is different so there are different numbers for elasticity of substitution in different cities and regions. This paper is trying for estimating elasticity of substitution n a median city by gathering data survey. The results show elasticity of substitution between land and capital in housing services production in city of Dorud is 1/04 percent in 2018.