A Study On The Property Rights Attenuation And Rent Dissipaiton Of Mineral Resources

Rent dissipation, which means that the rent (or value) of the resource is reducedand even completely disappeared owing to the problem of property right arrangement,is one of important theories in current property economics. Mineral resources areexhaustible. Compared to infinite demand of human, finite supply capability of theresource initiates scare effect, which causes an abnormal profit or abnormal incomefor a long term. The Mineral resource with stable supply capacity would continuouslyproduce rent value if it was mined in measure and managed properly.Whereas it willcause reduction and waste of rent value, i.e. called “rent dissipation” issue. Eventhough it is clearly specified that mineral resource is owned by the country in China,property right attenuation issue is serious in actuality, which include ownershipbenefit of the country not be fully embodied, use right be strictly ruled and limited,cession right be controled by the government, benefit right not be equivalent to thecontrol right etc. Property right attenuation makes a large amount of mineralresources revenue and property benefit be placed into public field, which areconverted into resource rent and further cause rent seeking activity of relevant benefitbody and rent dissipation. Rent dissipation not only reduces allocation efficiency ofthe mineral resources and causes waste and depletion of resource, but also causes rentseeking, corruption and social welfare loss during resource property management,which finally causes loss of mining revenue.This paper takes advantage of property theory, public choice theory and otherrelevant theories to set up “property rights attenuation–public field–rentdissipation” theory mode, analyze type of property attenuation of the mineralresource, constitution of public field and rent dissipation issue, and then provideinnovative way and policy of mineral resource property right and benefit allocationsystem, so as to try one’s best to solve system bottleneck and benefit allocationpuzzle in resource-based regions.Main research conclusions in the paper include: (1) Because of exclusive property right attenuation and invalid agencyagreement during mineral resource development, main body of the property rightcan’t fully restrain the excessive, disorder, illegal behavior of other stakeholders, andthe resource developer only considers private cost and doesn’t consider social cost,which causes called “tragedy of commons” and externalities, leading to the mineralresources rent is reduced and rent dissipation.(2) During the course of mineral resources acquisition and transaction, themarket entrants must obtain or maintain monopolistic position throughnon-productive rent seeking activity as a result of imperfect market system andgovernment regulation. The costs which spend in the rent creation and rent seekingactivities are also one rent dissipation of non-exclusive income.(3) Shanxi Province is rich of coal. Not only serious resource loss and ecologyenvironment destruction is produced but also there exists rent-seeking and corruptionissue during high strength, extensive and large scale coal resource development formany years, rent dissipation phenomenon is extremely outstanding. This paper judgesthat rent dissipation is very serious in Shanxi through fore indexes including resourcevalue loss, external loss, social welfare net loss, and rent seeking cost, which weremore than9%of Shanxi GDP.(4) Property right system of mineral resources will be optimized throughdeepening property right reform of resource-based enterprises, innovating minemanagement system of the government and improving the mining right tradingmarket and so on. And on this basis we will re-constitute the paid use system, royaltysystem, and comprehensive compensation system of mineral resources, so as tocoordinate benefit allocation relationship between different bodies, reduce rentdissipation and realize total trading cost lowest and resource allocation optimum ofmining industry.Innovation points in this paper include:(1) There is an innovation in selecting this topic。Based on a unique viewpoint of rent dissipation, this paper have an in-depth study on many problem ofresource-based economy, including the tragedy of Commons, externality,rent-seeking and monopoly etc., and trying to seek innovation in topic selection andtheme positioning.（2）There is a theory innovation points in the paper. Based on the study on theproperty rights attenuation, the public domain constitution and the rent dissipationconnotation of mineral resources, the paper set up inventively the theoretical analysisframework of“property attenuation–public domain–rent dissipation”. Theframework was used to study the rent dissipation problem of the mineral resourcesdevelopment links and transfer links. Because of exclusive property right attenuationand transferable property rights attenuation, there is huge rent dissipation in the twolinks. The more serious the property right attenuation, the greater the scope of publicdomain and the more serious the rent dissipation. On the other hand, the mineralresource property right reform will prompt property right more completly, step bystep to define clearly the rights of public domain, and ultimately solving the rentdissipation problems of mining industry.（3）There is an innovation of research method. This paper measure the rentdissipation degree of shanxi coal resources development according to the fourindexes, including resources value loss, externality loss, social welfare loss, andrent-seeking cost. This paper detailed the marginal benefit descends of miningindustry and social welfare loss, and puts forward a new idea for studying theproperty right system arrangement and resources allocation.