Population migration, urbanization and housing prices: Evidence from the cities in China

Changes in housing demand because of population migration may have a great influence on urban housing prices. The objective of this paper is to investigate how the two aspects of population migration, including inter-regional migration and rural-urban migration, affect housing prices at city level in China. By using the data of the population sampling survey in 2005 and the sixth population census in 2010, a series of empirical studies have been conducted. The results of pooled cross-section data show that an increase in inter-regional migrants by 1% will lead to a rise in housing prices by 0.701% when controlling the other relevant factors. Likewise, an increase in the level of urbanization by 1% will drive up housing prices by 0.343%. Furthermore, the study figures out that the better educated migrants are more likely to affect local housing prices, and the cities with more migrants with higher educational level are expected to experience higher housing prices, which sheds some light on the mechanism of the relationship between migration and housing price. The findings are helpful to China's government in population-related policy making and planning.