China's average household saving rate is one of the highest in the world. One popular view attributes the high saving rate to fast rising housing prices and other costs of living in China. This article uses simple economic logic to show that rising housing prices and living costs per se cannot...

China’s housing prices have been growing nearly twice as fast as national income in the past decade despite (i) a phenomenal rate of return to capital and (ii) an alarmingly high vacancy rate. This paper interprets such a prolonged paradoxical housing boom as a rational bubble that...

China's over 25% aggregate household saving rate is one of the highest in the world. One popular view attributes the high saving rate to fast-rising housing prices in China. However, cross-sectional data do not show a significant relationship between housing prices and household saving rates....

This paper provides a theory to explain the paradoxical features of the great housing boom in China — the persistently faster-than-GDP housing price growth, exceptionally high capital returns, and excessive vacancy rates. The expectation that high capital returns driven mainly by resource...