THE POLITICAL-ECONOMY OF THE PRIVATISATION OF THE LAND MARKET IN SHANGHAI

This paper examines a land market in which the authority in China has a monopolistic power in the granting of the use rights of land to deve lopers/investors for real estate development purposes, By granting lan d in private treaty mode rather than open market competition to the de velopers/investors, the Chinese authority is actually distorting the l and prices achieved in the emerging market which will subsequently lea d to a distortion of normal land price behaviour, Despite the fact tha t the authority might have been underpricing land in Shanghai, they co ntinue to sell land through the same private treaty mechanism. One pos sible explanation for this is the deeply rooted ideology of the concep t of 'cost as value', while another is the possible political complica tions involved in the property rights of various invisible interests i n land.