The Allocation of Ultra Scarce Property Rights in Hong Kong - A Policy Evaluation

Abstract

Reality seldom conforms to theory and the Hong Kong experience lends credence to this assertion. The territory has a nearly unassailable reputation for allowing market forces to operate in a virtually unfettered fashion, but in practice it has a not insignificant public sector which flexes its muscles in the fiscal, monetary, and regulatory domains. The impulses that originate from this source are supposedly designed to complement and reinforce private initiative, yet there is ample evidence to suggest that government failure is by no means a rare phenomenon. The procedures relied upon in selling land, a precious commodity, serve as a telling case in point.