Does the Loosening of Household Registration Regulation Push up the House Prices—Evidence from “Talent Settlement” Policy in Provincial Capital Cities

While the reform of the household registration system promotes the urbanization process, it also pushes up housing prices. With the help of the “quasi-natural experiment” of talent settlement policies in recent years, this paper uses panel data from 26 provincial capitals from 2006 to 2018 to study the impact of talent settlement policies on urban housing price fluctuations by a double difference method. The empirical analysis shows that the “talent settlement” policy has significantly promoted the rise of urban housing prices, and its impact depends on urban transportation and education: the better the transportation conditions, the more obvious the increase in housing prices in cities with higher education levels. Further mechanism analysis found that the introduction of talents can improve the scale and innovation level of urban credit. This provides important enlightenment for the city how to perfect the talent settlement policy.