Property Tax and Housing Wealth Inequality: Evidence from China

Abstract

This paper empirically investigates the impact of the property tax on housing wealth inequality using the property tax pilot program in China as a quasi-natural experiment. Our findings uncover a significant decrease in the Gini coefficients of the housing wealth in the pilot cities. The main channels at work include evolutionary housing demand from home buyers and the convergence of housing prices for different sizes. Two typical tax-exemption scenarios, based on per capita housing area or total number of housing units, present significant differences in the magnitude of the policy effectiveness as well as the effective channels.