Abstract/Summary

Housing supply elasticity is known to be related to three types of development constraints: topography, regulations, and scarcity of undeveloped land. This paper shows that land ownership can also explain the spatial heterogeneity in supply elasticity if development costs differ between private and public land. Using data from Hong Kong (2003–2018), where government-owned land is common and has development advantages, this paper confirms that the availability of government land contributes significantly to housing supply elasticity, in addition to the three constraints. This paper sheds light on the potential of utilizing public land to increase housing supply.