Do high housing prices crowd out young professionals?—micro-evidence from China

• Main Authors: Yemin, Ding, Lee, Chin, Mengqiu, Lu, Peidong, Deng
• Format: Article
• Published: Taylor and Francis Group 2022
• Online Access: http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/101004/; https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1331677X.2022.2142832#:~:text=High%20housing%20prices%20can%20crowd,(Li%20et%20al.%2C%202022

Motivated by the growing trend of young professionals flowing out of high-profile cities in China, this study examines whether high housing prices have a crowding-out effect on young professionals across 235 Chinese cities. Using a conditional logit model with multiple control variables related to the economy, the social environment, and city location, the results showed an inverted U-shaped relationship between a city’s house prices and young professionals’ potential migration into the city. We also performed a series of robustness checks and categorised the sample by gender, academic qualification, and marital status. The results indicated the same inverted U-shaped relationship, but with different extreme points for house prices across the sub-samples. The findings offer suggestions for Chinese local governments to attract young professionals by regulating housing prices in cities where prices surpass the extreme point.