中文摘要：

本文以地方政府面临的财政不平衡为切人点来探索转型时期中国城镇房价持续高涨背后的制度性因素。在对经验事实进行背景分析的基础上，采用2000—2011年的分省面板数据，本文将财政不平衡、土地财政和房价置于统一的分析框架，通过构建联立方程模型对三者之间的相互作用关系进行实证分析。结果表明，在控制了经济基本面、人口结构、城市化率、产业结构、对外开放度和地区间竞争等潜在影响因素的情形下，地方政府面临的财政不平衡是引致其积极追求土地财政的制度性因素；土地财政规模与房价存在着显著的正向反馈效应；进一步分析财政不平衡对房价的影响机制，系统GMM的估计结果表明，地方政府面临的财政不平衡对于城镇房价的持续上涨起到重要的推动作用，土地财政规模是连结两者的中间变量。由此，得到如下政策启示：为了抑制房价快速持续上涨，理顺中央和地方两级政府的分配关系、落实事权和支出责任相适应的制度以及完善地方融资渠道等制度建设等方面应得到足够的重视。

英文摘要：

This paper investigates the institutional evidences which push up the urban housing prices in China through examining the relationship among fiscal imbalance, land finance and housing prices. The data shows that the higher housing prices are correlated with the larger scale of land finance, meanwhile, the formation and boost of land finance is closely correlated with the fiscal imbalance facing sub national governments in the context of tax sharing system. Basing on the institutional analysis of style facts above, we use the provincial panel data from 2000 through 2011 and establish the econometric models to empirically research on the relationship among fiscal imbalance, land finance and housing prices. The results based on Simultaneous Equations Models show that when controlling other potential factors affecting housing prices, the fiscal imbalance is one of significant institutional factors that induce sub national governments to pursue land finance. The scale of land finance and housing prices has significant positive feedback effects. Moreover, we investigate the mechanism between fiscal imbalance and housing prices through the two steps based on dynamic GMM. The results show that expan- ding of fiscal imbalance plays important role in the house price soaring, and the middle variable links both is the land finance. Our results are robust to replacement of key variables and estimation methods and a range of specification checks, and have direct regulation and control policy implications for real estate market.