China's forest tenure reform and institutional change in the new century: What has been implemented and what remains to be pursued?

Yin, Runsheng; Yao, Shunbo; Huo, Xuexi

doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2012.06.010

Cited by 96 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…However, similar policies, named "the Three Fixes", were not implemented thoroughly in China's forestry sector, partly due to ecological considerations [2]. The forestry productivity has been severely impeded by institutional and regulatory barriers [3]. Therefore, a new round of tenure reform was initiated on collective forestland around 2003 [4], known as the collective forest tenure reform (CFTR).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Off-Farm Employment on Forestland Transfers in China: A Simultaneous-Equation Tobit Model Estimation

et al. 2017

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China's new round tenure reform has devolved collective forests to individuals on an egalitarian basis. To balance the equity-efficiency dilemma, forestland transfers are highly advocated by policymakers. However, the forestland rental market is still inactive after the reform. To examine the role of off-farm employment in forestland transfers, a simultaneous Tobit system of equations was employed to account for the endogeneity, interdependency, and censoring issues. Accordingly, the Nelson-Olson two-stage procedure, embedded with a multivariate Tobit estimator, was applied to a nationally representative dataset. The estimation results showed that off-farm employment plays a significantly negative role in forestland rent-in, at the 5% risk level. However, off-farm activities had no significant effect on forestland rent-out. Considering China's specific situation, a reasonable explanation is that households hold forestland as a crucial means of social security against the risk of unemployment. In both rent-in and rent-out equations, high transaction costs are one of the main obstacles impeding forestland transfer. A remarkable finding was that forestland transactions occurred with a statistically significant factor equalization effect, which would be helpful to adjust the mismatched labor-land ratio and improve the land-use efficiency.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Off-Farm Employment on Forestland Transfers in China: A Simultaneous-Equation Tobit Model Estimation

et al. 2017

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“…Local forest transaction centers have also been set up to facilitate the transfer of forestland and the sale of timber [47].…”

Section: Collective Forest Tenure Reforms In Chinamentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Property Rights Integrity Improve Tenure Security? Evidence from China’s Forest Reform

Zhou

et al. 2018

Sustainability

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Abstract:The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of land property rights integrity, subdivided into use rights, mortgage rights, and transfer rights, on household perceptions of long-term tenure security in China. To this end, we establish a theoretical framework that links China's collective forest tenure reforms undertaken since 2003 to property rights integrity and two sources of tenure (in)security based on property rights theory: forestland reallocation and expropriation. Probit models are applied in the empirical analysis to household data collected in Jiangxi province in 2011 and 2013. The results indicate that household perceptions of tenure insecurity resulting from forestland reallocation expectations are affected by transfer rights, whereas household perceptions of insecurity resulting from forestland expropriation expectations are not affected by forestland rights. We thus suggest that it is crucial for policymakers to identify the sources of local property rights insecurity before they take steps to strengthen land tenure security. This paper contributes to the available literature on the relationship between property rights integrity and tenure security by identifying different sources of tenure insecurity, emphasizing the effect of property rights integrity on long-term tenure security, and taking into account the potential endogeneity problem.

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“…Households had to apply for cutting permits for trees on their contracted forestland, and after cutting, farmers could only sell to the state procurement agency at low and planned prices set by the government [31]. In addition, high stumpage taxes and fees were collected from households and their communities to fund the reforestation activities [5]. After the Three Fixes reform, about 70% of collective forestland was allocated to households, however, this transfer was somehow ostensible and the control was actually held by collective villages [32].…”

Section: Historical Evolvement Of China's Forestland Tenurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, public transaction platforms or forestland-based asset evaluation agencies have been established. All these actions would facilitate forestland transactions [4,5]. Table 3 reports the estimation results of the standard Tobit model (not addressing endogeneity), a standard linear IV model with panel data (not addressing censoring), and a standard linear model with panel data (neither addressing endogeneity nor censoring).…”

Section: The Cftr Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The second stage is called the supplementary or supportive reform, and it grants several important additional rights concerning forestland to households. These include the rights to transfer, inherit, and mortgage the entitled forestland [5]. To some extent, it can be said that the main-body reform is an equity-based change, while the supplementary one is an efficiency-and development-oriented reform.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Institutional Regime, Off-Farm Employment, and the Interaction Effect: What are the Determinants of Households’ Forestland Transfer in China?

et al. 2017

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Abstract:The development of the land rental market has been widely attributed to the associated institutional regime and the functioning of the off-farm labor market. However, little is known of the interaction effect of these two factors. To fill this gap, we employ a nationwide representative household dataset to investigate the effects of China's collective forest tenure reform (CFTR) and off-farm employment on forestland transfer in China. Special interest is focused on their potential interaction effect. The Smith-Blundell instrumental variable tobit model is adopted to account for the endogeneity of off-farm employment. The estimation results show that both the tenure reform and off-farm employment significantly influence forestland transactions. However, compared to the positive effect of the reform on both renting in and renting out forestland, the effect of off-farm employment is mixed, that is, its effect is negative when forestland is rented in but positive on rent-out decisions. An important finding is that the CFTR imposes a negative enhancement effect on forestland rent-in through its interaction term with off-farm employment. In contrast, the enhancement effect on rent-out is not statistically significant, which may be due to the neutralization by the endowment effect of the CFTR.

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China's forest tenure reform and institutional change in the new century: What has been implemented and what remains to be pursued?

Cited by 96 publications

References 22 publications

The Effect of Off-Farm Employment on Forestland Transfers in China: A Simultaneous-Equation Tobit Model Estimation

The Effect of Off-Farm Employment on Forestland Transfers in China: A Simultaneous-Equation Tobit Model Estimation

Does Property Rights Integrity Improve Tenure Security? Evidence from China’s Forest Reform

Institutional Regime, Off-Farm Employment, and the Interaction Effect: What are the Determinants of Households’ Forestland Transfer in China?

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