Three essays on China's housing market, monetary policy and macroeconomy
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] This dissertation studies China's housing market and macroeconomic activity with a strong focus on the role of monetary policy behind the markets. The first two chapters concentrate on the house price dynamics in China. Chapter 1 examines the in influence of monetary policy on China's housing price fluctuation by estimating a VAR model with China's aggregated house price data from 1998Q1 to 2015Q4. The monetary policy shock is identify ed by the sign restriction approach following Uhlig (2005), with the identification assumptions extended to three common policy instruments utilized by the central bank of China: interest rate, required reserve ratio and M2. The results suggest a negative impact of a contractionary monetary policy shock on the house price, and M2 tends to be the most effective monetary instruments in terms of policy transmission. The framework is also extended to examine the link between China's 2008 government economic stimulus plan and the subsequent house price appreciation. The obtained evidence suggests that the economic stimulus props up the house price, but its contribution to the post-2008 house price appreciation is not as prominent as indicated by other relevant studies. However, this discrepancy may be explained by the heterogeneous effects of the stimulus policy on local housing markets across China