Does the policy of rural land rights confirmation promote the transfer of farmland in China?

Abstract

Land tenure security and land transfer markets are once again a topmost priority in the policy development agenda because of their expected outcomes in terms of equity and efficiency in the rural sector of China. The policy of rural land rights confirmation has been implemented since 2010 to enhance land tenure security and the transferability of farmland. However, only a few studies have been conducted on the effect of rural land rights confirmation on farmland transfer. Therefore, we use household-level survey data from 48 villages across Tianjin City and Shandong Province to explore whether rural land rights confirmation promotes the transfer of farmlands. Our empirical results show that rural land rights confirmation has significant and positive effects on the likelihood and amount of transfer-out land at the 5% significance level, but the effect on transfer-in farmland is insignificant. The results of the study have several policy implications. For instance, the agricultural comparative advantage should be improved through various agricultural subsidy policies. Moreover, the intermediary service network for farmland transfer should be established, and strengthening the non-farm employment skills and improving the non-agricultural employment market are necessary for the rural labour force.

Property Rights Reform to Support China’s Rural-Urban Integration: Village-Level Evidence from the Chengdu Experiment

“…5-8 of panel A) that imply a (marginally significant) reform-induced increase in the share of households who rented out or in, with point estimates of 1% but no difference in mean shares of land transferred. 21 This is consistent with evidence from elsewhere that confirmation of rural land rights affects land market participation (Xu et al 2017).…”

Property Rights Reform to Support China's Rural–Urban Integration: Village‐Level Evidence from the Chengdu Experiment

“…5–8 of panel A) that imply a (marginally significant) reform‐induced increase in the share of households who rented out or in, with point estimates of 1% but no difference in mean shares of land transferred . This is consistent with evidence from elsewhere that confirmation of rural land rights affects land market participation (Xu et al ., ).…”

Understanding the Farmland Rights Confirmation Policy from the Perspective of Farmers: Evidence from Jiangxi, China

“…Simultaneously, the inherent worth of land resources has also grown as a result of FRCP [ 25 ]. Some scholars have proposed that that FRCP may facilitate farmland transfer under the analysis of property rights theory [ 18 , 26 ]. According to Cheng et al, controlling for other variables, FRCP increased the likelihood of farmers participating in farmland transfer by 4.9%, while the average amount of land transfer per household in villages increased by 246.67 m 2 , which is almost twice as much as in villages without the implementation of FRCP, and the land rental rate increased by 43.3% [ 18 ].…”