The real estate user charge and its impact on housing development in China

Off-budget public finance in China is an informal system of levies that emerges in response to local fiscal needs. Off-budget funds serve as part of local government revenue and help finance local government expenditures. In the real estate sector, local governments raise off-budget funds by charging many types of user fees on housing development. The user charge revenue is an important revenue source to finance urban public service expenditures. Some drawbacks of user charges such as legal ambiguity and the lack of transparency reflect noteworthy investment risks in Chinese housing development. Thus, a good understanding of the real estate user charges is critical for foreign and domestic developers who are interested in housing development in China. In this study, we have explored literatures about urban public service policies, presented facts about the current user charge practices, analyzed the costs incurred in use fee transactions, evaluated the efficiency and equity contributions of the current system, and illustrated important issues in details by a case study of a single user fee.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Deng, Hui, M.C.P. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Yu-hung Hong.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/37657

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/37657