The Landlord State: Land Allocation as a Tool of Industrial Policy in China

Abstract

States routinely intervene in the pricing and allocation of capital and labor when engaging in industrial policy. Drawing on evidence from China, where a landlord state imposed a state monopoly on urban land, this article shows how interventions in the pricing and allocation of land can also be put into the service of industrial policy. Much like other tools of industrial policy, state pricing and allocation of land requires a strong state, manifested through state building efforts to impose control over land resources. In the case of China, these state building efforts spurred a broad growth coalition, spanning local governments, real estate developers, urban homeowners, and ultimately banks and even peri-urban villagers; the political breadth of this growth coalition redirected the landlord state away from its industrial policy origins and toward frenetic real estate investment. Show more