Does Auction Design Facilitate Collusion

The dataset used in this study comprises detailed records of land auctions conducted across 15 Chinese cities between 2006 and 2016. The data were compiled from multiple official and verified sources, including city-level Land and Resources Bureaus, China Land Market Network (CLMN), and supplementary government bulletins.

Each observation corresponds to a single parcel-level land transaction and contains information on auction characteristics, transaction outcomes, and parcel attributes. Specifically, the dataset includes:
1）Auction details: auction format (one-stage vs. two-stage), announcement and closing dates, reserve price, and final sale price;
2）Parcel characteristics: land area (hectares), land-use type (residential, commercial, industrial), location identifiers (city and district), and development conditions;
3）Market and timing controls: year, month, and region identifiers to capture temporal and regional heterogeneity;
4）Instrumental variable: the number of land transactions with the same land-use type in the same city within the previous three months (land_transaction_3m), reflecting recent market activity and liquidity conditions.