Policy spillover and regional linkage characteristics of the real estate market in China's urban agglomerations

The main purpose of this study is to determine the spillover effect of real estate regulatory policies released by core cities on the surrounding cities in major urban agglomerations based on regional linkage characteristics of China's real estate market. In this study, real estate transaction data of 157 cities were selected from 11 major urban agglomerations. Agglomeration's housing transaction volatility and spillover effect caused by the core city's regulatory policies were simulated by integrating spatial and temporal analysis model, event analysis, and symbolic time series analysis. The findings showed that (1) the regional linkage of the real estate market in the Harbin–Changchun and Middle–South Liaoning, Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River, Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and West Side of the Straits agglomerations were remarkably tight and the core cities' policy spillover effect was significant, of which the house purchase limitation and credit limitation policies had the widest influence; (2) the regional linkage of the real estate market in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei agglomeration, Shandong Peninsula, Guanzhong Plain, and Chengdu–Chongqing agglomerations was relatively weaker, but the core cities' policies of market regulation and taxation had certain spillover effect; (3) there were significant differences in the spillover effects of different types of policies in different urban agglomerations; (4) generally, the core cities' policy spillover often reduced the changing characteristics of the real estate market and made it more ordered with more certainty in the whole agglomeration, with the exception of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei, West Side of the Straits, and Chengdu–Chongqing agglomerations.