Wood and concrete are perfectly valid for low rise construction. It isn't exactly "cheap" but reasonable. In fact, wood is much better than concrete in handling earth quakes.

If it wasn't for earth quakes, you can get up to about 30 or so floors with concrete, which is the standard in China (a bit overbuilt on wall/floor thickness, but quality is less than the states). Anything higher, you should go with steel, and anyways, I'm guessing steel is standard for high rise construction in earth quake prone areas, right? The biggest problem with steel is that the skills needed to work it are much greater, so you can't just through surplus farmer labor at it (which is why China doesn't use it very often).