Land pricing and its impact on land use efficiency in post-land-reform China: A case study of Beijing

• From 1992 to 2012 urban built land has more than doubled in Beijing.
• Change in land use efficiency varies with indicators used in post-reform Beijing.
• Land pricing system affects land productivity and its effects evolve with land reform.
• Effects of land pricing system turned positive with prohibition of negotiated land grants.
• The current land pricing system helps improve land investment intensity.

This paper analyzes how the newly introduced land pricing system affects urban land productivity in China, taking post-land-reform Beijing as an example. China has been developing its urban land market by building an effective pricing system. This study indicates that the effects of such pricing system on urban land productivity have evolved with the progress of land reform. It is only since 2004, when land granting by negotiation was at last totally prohibited for profit-oriented developments, that the land pricing system has started to positively and significantly improve urban land productivity; the land pricing system also promotes more productive urban land usage by stimulating more intensive investment and better business management.