Motive Forces For The Evolution Of Land Tenure System In Rural China

Land tenure system, as the basic system in rural China, has the direct and profound bearing on the development of China's agriculture, rural economy and national economy at large. Since the founding of New China, the land tenure system in rural China has gone through a tortuous evolution leading to the rises and falls of different patterns of agriculture and rural economy, which illustrates that further studies are still required to learn the inherent law for the evolution of land tenure system in rural areas. Presently, there are still many problems existing in the household-based land contract system, such as the inexplicit ownership of land, irrational allocation of resources, imbalance between equity and efficiency. These issues not only restrict the overall improvement of agriculture and rural economy but also touch off many contradictions. In order to solve these problems and contradictions, one must thoroughly analyze the evolution of land institution in rural areas in order to find out the inherent law. The subject of this thesis is the evolution of land tenure system in rural China after the founding of New China and the objective is to explain this evolution in the category of economics and discover the inherent law for the evolution of rural land tenure system. Through the application of relevant institutional economic theories to analyze transaction environment and interest groups with transaction cost as the thread, the specific goal is to establish a model of the forces motivating the evolution of China's rural land system and, at the same time, to explain the whole process of evolution in the category of economics. This research result, which is both of historical and practical significance, will promote the comprehensive understanding of the evolution process so that we can predict more accurately the future trend.This thesis is divided into the following sections:Chapter One is the first Section and is the part of introduction, which gives reasons for choosing this subject and summarizes related documents. Through classification and review of the previous research articles, the author points out those articles take no notice of the external environment for the evolution of the rural land tenure system and there is no substantial research on major game players participating the evolution. Specialized research is still to be conducted on the decision-making process of the evolution. In connection with these issues, the author puts forward his research concept and framework in this Chapter.Section II includes Chapter Two and Three and is for theory derivation. Based on the theory of transaction cost and the theory of institutional evolution, the author theoretically analyzes the process of institutional evolution so as to establish a general theoretical modelfor institutional evolution and a theoretical model for the evolution of rural land tenure system. Chapter Two is about the derivation relating to the general theoretical model for institutional evolution. After analyzing the transaction cost theory and institutional evolution theory, the author points out that the limitations of these two theories: the theory of transaction cost pays no attention to the external factors affecting transaction cost and it leads to the poor combination of the research on institutional evolution with the external environment; and with regard to the theory of institutional evolution, it lacks in-depth research on action groups leading to too abstract and impractical conclusions. In order to solve these problems, the author puts forward a new instrument for institutional analysis: the transaction environment, which is the external environment formed by related factors affecting transaction cost. By using this instrument, one can analyze the impact or external environment and the activities of interest groups on transaction cost; therefore, a new research concept can thus be formed to analyze the activities of interest groups in the transaction environment. In order to bring the external environment and interest...