Study On Villagers’ Behavior In Collective Property Rights Institution Reform Of Urban Villages

Collective property rights institution reform is the difficult part of the transformation and development of urban village. It is also an essential part in terms of changing the urban-rural dual structure and improving the quality of Urbanization. The process of collective property rights institution reform is a process of interest adjustment and reconstruction, involving different interest subject such as villagers, village organizations, government and so on. Villagers are the main interest subject and primary behavior subject whose expectation, reference and behavior will have an impact on the effectiveness and efficiency of the reform. Thus the innovation of collective property right institution should base on the need of villagers. This paper takes behavior of villagers as the research object, analyzes the process of villagers’behavioral motives, aims, the decision-making and choice restrained by cost, and the structure and mechanism of the behavior of the villagers, which can not only be of an important practical significance to the reforming of the collective property right institution in the urban villages and the vast rural areas,but also offers a referential ideas and support for the theoretical study of collective property rights institution reform.This paper is based on the theoretical frame of the institution and institutional change theory, property right theory,game theory, public choice theory and behavioral economics. Synthetically, some quantitative and qualitative methods such as dynamic game model analysis, binary Logistic regression analysis, cross contingency table, cost-benefit analysis and case analysis are used. With use of survey data and typical cases of urban villages’collective property rights institution reform in Fuzhou, the paper revolves around the following issues:First, the theoretical analysis framework is built, the paper defines the core concepts such as rural collective property rights and behavior, etc., explains the relevant theories, and put forward the research framework.Second, the formation logic, essential parts and the development dilemma of collective property rights institution reform in urban village, and the historical and realistic background of behaviors of villagers in the reform are systematically reviewed and summarized, leading to the questions.Third, the paper analyzes the status, games and differentiation of the villagers in the reform, discusses the motivation, goals and choice of different interest subject such as central and local government, rural organizations, villagers and so on. Then the paper analyzes the primary behavior status evolution of villagers and its function in the changing process of property rights institution, the benefit-scrambling game between villagers and local government around the reform with a dynamic game model and the differentiation of ordinary villagers and the village elites based on different interests.Fourth, the paper discusses the behavior of ordinary villagers and the village elite in the reform. Revolving around three pieces of main contents in the reform, which are quantification of collective property, restoration of collective economic organizations and collective economy development, the behavior motivation and the benefit pursuit of ordinary villagers and village elites as well as their conflicts and gaining during the process from the appearance of external, profits to the break of balancing institution and redefining property right are analyzed as to figure out how they make decisions to form the contracts of benefit consistency. The paper uses binary logistic regression model to analyze factors which affects the willingness of villagers in collective property right reforming.Fifth, the paper discusses the structure and mechanism of villagers’behavior in the reforming process of collective property rights institution. Using the structure model of the villager institutional choice behavior which made up of 4 inner factors and 14 external factors, the paper discusses the mechanism of the villagers’institutional choices in property rights reform.Sixth, put forward the policy suggestions to promote the reform of collective property rights institutionThe main conclusions of the paper are as follows: First, villagers are the primary behavior subject in the collective property rights institution reform and they are the promoters of institution change, the designers and the decision makers of the reform plan. Second, the collective property rights institution reform is the result of the game between the actors. Ordinary villagers play a key role in determining the direction and content of the reform. They influence institutional performance by the transaction costs and production efficiency. From the quantitative and organizational reconstruction to the collective economic development, ordinary villagers build their most favorable collective asset allocation in the game of structure ordinary villagers and village elite, members and non-members, the villagers and residents, villagers and the government, and other internal and external interests, based on their current income maximizing. They form a reform plan and promote the institutional change finally.Third, the village elite are the institutional entrepreneurs in the reform, and they guide the reform direction and content as the determination of the role. The paper analyzes the cost and benefit the village elite in the reform, using the cost-benefit model based on "lagged supply" model. The cost mainly includes the cost of decision-making and organization, direct and indirect personal economic costs, the cost of blocking, and the benefit of the material and the spiritual. The behavior choices of the vi 1.1 age el ite are based on the rational calculation of cost and benefit and the value judgment, and the pursuit of the reputation, trust, justice, etc.Fourth, the villagers’willingness to reform is influenced by the characteristics of the individual and the family, the expectation of income, the cognition of the reform and the trust. The variables including villagers’education level, the main source of household income after land expropriation, collective asset income expectations after the reform, the ownership of collective assets, whether care about the village collective economic operation, the trust of the economic and social factors, have a significant impact on the villagers’willingness.Fifth, based on Ostrom’s analysis framework of individual institutional choice and the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the villagers’ behavior in the reform, this paper constructs the institutional choice behavior model of the villagers in the reform. The inner factors are the expected revenue, the expected costs, the discount rate and internal standards. The external factors which affect villagers by function the internal factors are made up of the following 14 parts: the institutional design, the collective asset conditions, the heterogeneity of interests, the trust, the conventional cultures and so on. The internal and external variables constitute the general model.Sixth, the mechanism of the villagers’ institutional choice is put forward:(1) Benefit is the main factor for villagers when evaluating whether to support the reform and the way to reform. Different objective functions lead to different behavior. (2) The conflicts of interest between villagers and other interest subjects reflect the defects of reform.The tension inside the institution spare blank space of the conflicts and struggles. (3) The violation of villagers’behavior is mainly caused by the incomplete reform of property rights institution, the conflicts and struggles trying to push the redistribution will not stop, with the strength changing of various benefit parties. (4) Good designing institution mechanism can strengthen the villagers’ willingness to reform, eventually achieving the sub-satisfactory balanced point and realizing the Pareto improvement. (5) On the cases that ordinary villagers and elite share fairly high accordance- and less contradiction, they will cooperate mutually, facilitating the reform smoothly. On the cases that ordinary villagers and elite conflict with each other for the direction or the contents of changing the institution, the results will generally be at the mercy of village elite.