Urban housing price fluctuations and regional systemic financial risks: Panel spatial economic models in Jiangsu, China

Abstract

The regional systemic financial risks driven by escalating urban housing prices have been of great concern recently. Based on the theoretical analyses on the mechanism of formation of regional systemic financial risk driven by urban housing price fluctuations, this paper builds panel spatial economic models to empirically analyze the relationship between urban housing price fluctuations and regional systemic financial risks, in addition to their spatial linkages, in 13 cities in Jiangsu, a representative province of China. The empirical results show the following. (1) The excessive investment or speculation of local governments, banks, real estate developers, individuals, and families on the housing market stimulate the escalation in urban housing prices, leading to the systemic financial risks; (2) Urban housing prices and the land supply price of local governments have strong spatial contagion effects among cities, which will diffuse risks to adjacent cities, causing regional systemic financial risk; (3) Compared with North Jiangsu, South Jiangsu has more serious investment expansion from real estate developers and stronger spatial contagion effects, suggesting the existence of heavier regional systemic financial risks derived from housing price fluctuations; (4) North Jiangsu has slightly stronger "imitative behavior" among local governments, and fewer "substitution effects" of central cities' demand to adjacent cities' demand than does South Jiangsu.