Land Price in Korea: Land Speculation and Market Failure

한국의 지가: 토지투기와 시장실패

The major purpose of this paper is to examine two closely related issues. An attempt is made here to examine internationally high land price in Korea from the perspectives of market fundamentals (MF) and bubble theory, respectively. Another theoretical issue, whether land speculation can result in market failure, is also examined. It has been concluded that the primary causes for the rapid increases in land prices in Korea, could be found in the perspective of MF. (1) The financial intermediaries has been controlled by the government since 1960s. Real Interest rates in the commercial banks has been controlled at the level of zero or sometimes negative; scarce financial resources has been rationed by the government. The governmental control of the bands has also resirained the development of securities market. Money, which can not find the appropri opportunity for saving in financial market, moves to land market. (2) Socially created land value, based on rapid economic gorwth and big public investment, has been appropriated mainly by the private: The effective tax rate of land holding tax has been under 0.02 percent; Real Estate Capital Galns Tax has, in fact, affected few persons, mainly because examptions and preferential taxation have been widely permitted. (3) The government has ploaced severe limitations on rural-to-urban land conversion, although the demand for urban uses has repidly grown. All factors above caused the cyclical land speculation. This, in turn, created the myth that land prices will inevitably continue to rise. Based on the myth, the growing bubble in land price has been created. This is the secondary reason for high land price relative to income in Korea. It is also shown that it is possible that speculation in land results in market failure because land is fixed in quantity and can be used for production and speculation purposes simultaneously.