This undated file photo shows apartment complexes in Seoul. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Sept. 27 (Korea Bizwire) — A recent study has shown that the increase in land prices greatly outpaced that of consumer prices last year, deepening inequality in land ownership.
According to a report released by the Institute of Land and Liberty on the basis of government data, land prices in South Korea grew by 6.7 percent last year, more than 13 times higher than the growth of consumer prices (0.5 percent)
Among land-owning households, the top one percent’s share (in value terms) rose for two straight years, reaching 22.1 percent in 2019 and 22.3 percent in 2020 after falling to 21.8 percent in 2018 from 23.2 percent in 2012.
The top 10 percent’s share showed a similar trend. After dropping to 57.1 percent in 2018 from 58.6 percent in 2012, it rebounded in 2019, reaching 57.6 percent in 2020.
In particular, the value of land owned by the top 1,000 households averaged 83.7 billion won (US$71 million) per household.
The Gini coefficient measuring the inequality in land ownership stood at 0.811 last year, far higher than the Gini coefficient for general household income and asset.
A Gini coefficient of zero expresses perfect equality and a Gini coefficient of 1 means perfect inequality.
The report stressed that about 40 percent of the Korean population has no land at all, with the nation’s land ownership being distributed in a highly unequal manner.
J. S. Shin (js_shin@koreabizwire.com)
