Land rental markets in the process of rural structural transformation : productivity and equity impacts in China

The importance of land rental for overall economic development has long been recognized in theory, yet empirical evidence on the productivity and equity impacts of such markets and the extent to which they realize their potential has been scant. Representative data from China's nine most important agricultural provinces illustrate the impact of rental markets on households'economic strategies and welfare, and the productivity of land use at the plot level. Although there are positive impacts in each of these dimensions, transaction costs constrain participation by many producers, thus preventing rental markets from attaining their full potential. The paper identifies factors that increase transaction costs and provides a rough estimate of the productivity and equity impacts of removing them.Banks&Banking Reform,Political Economy,Economic Theory&Research,Rural Development Knowledge&Information Systems,Labor Policies

Securing property rights in transition: lessons from implementation of China's rural land contracting law

This paper is motivated by the emphasis on secure property rights as a determinant of economic development in recent literature. The authors use village and household level information from about 800 villages throughout China to explore whether legal reform increased protection of land rights against unauthorized reallocation or expropriation with below-average compensation by the state. The analysis provides nation-wide evidence on a sensitive topic. The authors find positive impacts, equivalent to increasing land values by 30 percent, of reform even in the short term. Reform originated in villages where democratic election of leaders ensured a minimum level of accountability, pointing toward complementarity between good governance and legal reform. The paper explores the implications for situations where individuals and groups hold overlapping rights to land.Common Property Resource Development,Municipal Housing and Land,Access to Finance,Political Economy,Land and Real Estate Development

The impact of property rights on households'investment, risk coping, and policy preferences : evidence from China

Even though it is widely recognized that giving farmers more secure land rights may increase agricultural investment, scholars contend that, in the case of China, such a policy might undermine the function of land as a social safety net and, as a consequence, not be sustainable or command broad support. Data from three provinces, one of which had adopted a policy to increase security of tenure in advance of the others, suggest that greater tenure security, especially if combined with transferability of land, had a positive impact on agricultural investment and, within the time frame considered, led neither to an increase in inequality of land distribution nor a reduction in households'ability to cope with exogenous shocks. Household support for more secure property rights is increased by their access to other insurance mechanisms, suggesting some role of land as a safety net. At the same time, past exposure to this type of land right has a much larger impact quantitatively, suggesting that a large part of the resistance to changed property rights arrangements disappears as household familiarity with such rights increases.Real Estate Development,Environmental Economics&Policies,Land and Real Estate Development,Municipal Housing and Land,Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Municipal Housing and Land,Land and Real Estate Development,Real Estate Development,Banks&Banking Reform

Land rental markets as an alternative to government reallocation? equity and efficiency considerations in the Chinese land tenure system

The authors develop a model of land leasing with agents characterized by unobserved heterogeneity in ability and presence of an off-farm labor market. In this case, decentralized land rental may contribute to equity and efficiency goals and may have several advantages over administrative reallocation. The extent to which this is true empirically is explored using data from three of China's poorest provinces. The authors find that both processes redistribute land to those with lower endowments but that land rental markets are more effective in doing so and also have a larger productivity-enhancing effect than administrative reallocation, implying that more active land rental markets would allow producers to realize significant productivity gains. At the same time, the presence of a large number of producers whose participation in rental markets remains constrained suggests that efforts to reduce transaction costs in land rental markets would be warranted.Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Agribusiness&Markets,Municipal Housing and Land,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Agribusiness&Markets,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Rural Land Policies for Poverty Reduction

Land sales and rental markets in transition - evidence from rural Viet Nam

The extent to which households should be allowed to transfer their land rights in post-socialist transition economies is of considerable policy interest. The authors use data from Vietnam, a transition country that allows rental and sales of land use rights, to identify factors conducive to the development of land markets and to assess the extent to which land transfers enhance productive efficiency and transfer land to the poor. They find that activity in both rental and sales markets has increased rapidly, enhanced by the possession of long-term use rights and off-farm employment, and contributing to greater equity and efficiency of land use. While there is evidence for distress sales by households that experience a shock (death), the scope for such sales is reduced by well-functioning credit markets. Well-defined land rights and appropriate safety nets will thus help transition economies to realize the benefits from the operation of land markets.Banks&Banking Reform,Agribusiness&Markets,Land Use and Policies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Municipal Financial Management,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Agribusiness&Markets,Rural Land Policies for Poverty Reduction,Municipal Financial Management

Land Rental Markets in the Process of Rural Structural Transformation: Productivity and Equity Impacts from China

While the importance of land rental for overall economic development has long been recognized in theory, empirical evidence on the productivity and equity impact of such markets and the extent to which they realize their potential has been scant. Representative data from China's nine most important agricultural provinces illustrate the impact of rental markets on households' economic strategies, their welfare, and productivity of land use at the plot level. While there are positive impacts in each of these dimensions, transaction costs constrain participation by many producers, thus preventing rental markets from attaining their full potential. Factors that increase transaction costs are identified, together with a rough estimate of the productivity- and equity- impact of removing them.Land Economics/Use,

Securing property rights in transition: Lessons from implementation of China's rural land contracting law

While recent studies point towards the importance of institutions, in particular secure property rights, as key determinants of economic growth, options to foster institutional change to make property rights more secure are not well understood. Data from 800 villages all over China on the effectiveness with which a law aiming to increase households' tenure security -at the expense of local leaders' powers to reallocate or expropriate land without adequate compensation- provides an opportunity to identify such factors. Using illegal land reallocations and low compensation payments for expropriated land to identify lack of effective institutional change, we find that the impact of property rights reform is contingent on the institutional constraints imposed on leaders' power by democratic institutions and a clear legal framework, households' knowledge of the law, and to some extent presence of land certificates.Land Economics/Use,

Land Sales and Rental Markets in Transition: Evidence from Rural Vietnam

Impact and desirability of land transfers in post-socialist transition economies have been subject to considerable debate. We use data from Vietnam to identify factors conducive to the development of land markets and to assess potentially differential impacts of rental and sales. Results show that both rental and sales transfer land to more productive producers but that rental is more important for the poor to access land that becomes available as the non-farm economy develops. The fact that secure land rights significantly increase supply of land to the rental market suggests that government has a key role in facilitating emergence and functioning of efficiency-enhancing land markets.Land Economics/Use,

Formal and Informal Credit Markets and Rural Credit Demand in China

Credit markets are an essential economic institution. In developing countries, particularly in countries undergoing rapid social and economic transition, it is important to identify emerging credit demand and institute credit supply in a timely manner to facilitate economic transformation. This research focuses on the evolving rural credit market in China, where borrowing from the social network has been common but the recent economic transition has made this informal credit market inadequate in addressing rural credit needs. This research is aimed at identifying the social and economic factors that explain the farmers’ credit constraint and influence farmers’ decisions to switch from informal to formal credit markets. Using data from a household survey, we estimated both binary choice probit models and a multinomial probit model to explore the determinants of credit market choice and credit constraints. We found that the credit demand is significantly affected by household’s production capacity as supported by the fact that household size, land size, head’s education all significantly increase household’s probability to borrow, but the impact of these factors varies considerably by credit market. Transaction costs have a significant, negative effect on formal credit demand. The credit constraints analysis suggest that off-farm employment, land size and the cost of the credit are the three most important factors that increase the probability of being constrained.Formal Credit, Informal Credit, Credit Markets, Rural Credit, China, Agricultural Finance, Farm Management,

Moving off the farm: Land institutions to facilitate structural transformation and agricultural productivity growth in China

Agriculture has made major contributions to China's economic growth and poverty reduction, but the literature has rarely focused on the institutional factors that might underpin such structural transformation and productivity. This paper aims to fill that gap. Drawing on an 8-year panel of 1,200 households in six key provinces, it explores the impact of government land reallocations and formal land-use certificates on agricultural productivity growth, as well as the likelihood of households to exit from agriculture or send family members to the non-farm sector. It finds that land tenure insecurity, measured by the history of past land reallocations, discourages households from quitting agriculture. The recognitionof land rights through formal certificates encourages the temporary migration of rural labor. Both factors have a large impact on productivity (at about 30 percent each), mainly by encouraging market-based land transfers. A sustained increase in non-agricultural opportunities will likely reinforce the importance of secure land tenure, which is a precondition for successful structural transformation and continued economic attractiveness of rural areas.Labor Policies,Rural Development Knowledge&Information Systems,Economic Theory&Research,Economic Growth,Rural Poverty Reduction