Impact of new talent settlement policy on housing prices: Evidence from 70 large and medium-sized Chinese cities

Since 2017, Chinese cities have set off a wave of talent migration, with major cities joining the talent war and issuing new talent settlement policies that might stimulate the real estate market through the inflow and outflow of human capital. However, the effects of new talent settlement policies on housing prices have not been extensively studied. This study used a difference-in-differences model to examine the causal effects of new talent settlement policies on housing prices in China based on data from 70 large and medium-sized cities. The results showed that new talent settlement policies had positive effects on housing prices, and the effects revealed pronounced regional heterogeneity: they were more significant in the eastern region, first-tier, and new first-tier cities, and varied across major migration zones. Further, the varying policy tools in the new talent settlement policies had disparate effects on housing prices. Thus, we recommend that new talent settlement policies must be coordinated with the goals of real estate regulation and reasonable regional standards, and that the policy tools should be tailored according to the actual conditions of cities.