Institutional Economics Study Of Grassland Degradation

Grassland degradation is a worldwide problem no matter from the doctrinal or governance practices that is subject to thorough analysis and research, and which is an important topic in the current sustainability research. Current sustainable study from the perspective of institution has made obvious progress, and I believe that the institution study of the grassland degradation caused by human economic activity is also a right angle. This article is divided into three parts, including the concepts and research topics, the evolution of the institution of animal husbandry and change and the analysis of property rights system and other aspects of research. The first part is an introduction and basic concepts a, put forward basic concepts and theoretical framework used in the paper; The second part review and analyze the nomadic system, animal husbandry, land reform and the cooperative movement, people’s communes, livestock contracting and grassland contracting system from the angle of efficiency, fairness, and ecological sustainability, using Institution Analysis and Development framework (IAD) developed by the Nobel Prize winner Mrs Ostrom, from a series of unit framework the external variables, action domain, interactive mode, the output and evaluation, integrated using of mathematical concept model, game theory, economic principle diagram, logical proof and econometric model validation and other tools to analysis; The third part of the animal husbandry institution model is established, in which economics mechanism of grassland degradation from the contract based on risk preference, prairie in the view of asset value and property rights were studied. The main conclusions include:(1)The nomadic system in breeding a variety of heterogeneous animals, be helpful for grassland ecology;Nomadic system and grassland property right system is not very contradictory,the establishment of grassland property right has experienced from tribalism to flag system gradually explicit process; The success of the nomadic system includes four main factors,that is, the establishment of animals’property rights, setting up grassland grazing boundaries and flag demarcation to establish public property rights,5%of the livestock head taxes and power restrictions on sovereign privileged to abuse prairie, the success of the nomadic system can be used as reference for the current grassland management;(2)"shepherd has its livestock" is put forward in the early years of the grazing land reform system that caused a large number of livestock destructively slaughtered, which caught high-level’s attention and lead to "No share no fight, herder and owner double win" put forward under the name of the new Sue Luke system; New Sue Luke system has broken the contract balance and increased transaction costs of grassland grazing grassland; Peer support rapid growth comes from high transaction costs caused by the new Sue Luke system; Elementary and senior agricultural producers’ cooperative is the product of political movement which both are neither efficient nor fairness.(3) Pushed by a political movement, the establishment of people’s commune system was promoted and the degree of public ownership upgrade to an unprecedented height, but because of limitation of information and the technology at the time, however, impossible to establish effective regulatory organization and system, thus formed the common tragedy of ineffective regulation, and three years of natural disasters is painful example of the tragedy of the Commons in the early years of the people’s communes; A lot of research including Lin and Zhou have pointed out the proposition of the people’s commune inefficiency, but why inefficiency of the people’s communes after the early bitter frustrations could persist for more than20years, this paper noticed that after three years of natural disasters, from central to local levels have taken a series of measures including "3level’s ownership but on the basis of team" as articles of association of the people’s commune, all those transformation pushed relatively effective supervision and motivation to public property to build up. More important, the article found kinds of private incentives were established by way of hiding "output" by primary producers and teams, to a certain extent effective supplement the shortage of incentive of the people’s commune system itself. It is hiding output that increased incentives to make the inefficient people’s commune system to be subsistent in the long run. Since1978the development of is make the hiding of output gradually to clear and direct incentive until to livestock contracting and private purchasing, thus from Grazing Land Reform, the new Suluke, Peer Support Team, Elementary and Senior agricultural producers’ cooperative, People’s communes to Livestock Contracting Institution, private purchasing, in between there were the inefficiency of exists which pushed by political motion, but in the long term, the institutions chosen are gradually have some efficiency just for rational "confrontation" and "action hidden" by actual participants;(4) theoretical there is grassland tragedy of the Commons livestock during contracting and private purchasing system due to the prairie public use; Grassland property rights reform or contracting, because of high transaction cost to establish grassland property rights, is a slowly process from start to date, and the real grassland (actual enclosure grassland) that were contracted to family is less than50%, so in theory there is a the Commons tragedy of grasslands due to the non-contracted grasslands; In this paper, based on prairie asset value theory, I points out that degradation as a result of overgrazing can’t be solved by definition of the property rights, because of existence of "private tragedy", namely when personal discount rate of herdsmen higher than regeneration rate of grass, herdsmen will rationally choose to excessive use of the grassland which is in conformity with the principle of rationality and efficiency, so there is a paradox of economic efficiency and sustainable development issues; The existence of private tragedy is the root cause of increasing restrictions on grassland since2002, however, high controls and subsidies cost limits the govern and control efficiency, and a long-term effective governance mechanism remains to be established;(5) Under the condition of clear grassland property rights a grassland-livestock contract model was built conclusion is that animal husbandry contract parties of risk neutral bound to take overgrazing strategy; Even if the contract parties of the risk aversion, in condition of exists a variety of grassland contract there also is the risk of the overgrazing, that is to say, no consideration for cultural values factor, under the market economy, grassland degradation is almost inevitable. This can also be seen as another kind of expression of the prairie "private tragedy";(6) of grassland property rights system there lie some specific problems, including the trend of shorter transfer the possession of grassland and grassland contract rights deadline and provisions of member rights of grassland contracting are not clear, all these problems which to a certain extent will rule out the prairie long-term investments;(7) Establishment100%of grassland property right because of the existence of property rights transaction costs is impossible and at the same time problems of private tragedy even establishing property rights,so a public governance system is proposed in the new period according to an experience from the nomadic system.