%A Sanjoy Chakravorty
%T A New Price Regime
%! A New Price Regime
%X Land prices in urban and rural India have increased rapidly in the last decade - fivefold in urban areas and possibly more in some rural settings. Using comparable international data, this paper shows that urban prices are significantly higher than is commensurate with income and that the peaks of these prices are extraordinarily high. Similarly, rural prices in several regions are very high by international standards. It argues that the present conditions can be explained by a combination of increasing land scarcity with increasing money supply - from expanded housing credit, and rising incomes from white, black, and foreign sources - and increasing income and wealth inequality. All of which means this is no mere bubble.