| Although policy makers repeatedly advocate scale and formal land transfer,land transfer in China during the recent period mainly occurs among relatives/friends and is characterized with strong informality.It is necessary to understand the contradiction between policy target and reality.Land transfer without contract,specific term or rent is different form of informality.Particularly,land tenure without rent(the "0 rent" transfer)is quite unusual in history.Many survey carried out in the early 20th century showed that rent rate higher than 40%of the total field production is very common,while land tenure without rent is not the common case.Current literature notices that "0 rent" transfer can only occur among relatives/friends.Obviously,the "earth root" and "familiars society" nature of Chinese rural village can in some degree explain "0 rent".However,they can't fully explain it.For instance,the rural society was a "familiar society" before as it is now,why "0 rent" transfer is scarce under the same "familiar society" during the early 20th century?Therefore,taking a further look at the "0 rent" transfer would shed light on rent theory and policy making concerning land transfer.This study investigates "0 rent" in two paths.Firstly,according to the basic economic theory of cost and benefit-"every coin has two sides"-rural household definitely can't transfer land in without rent,thus the so called "0 rent" implies another form of land transfer rather than cash rent or rent in kind.Secondly,the fact that "0 rent" is scarce in history illustrates the difference of land transfer among different periods,thus,it is reasonable to summarize the feature of land transfer in past history and in the current stage.Base on literature review,this study employs the perspective of rent type of land transfer to analyze the "0 rent" land transfer.It argues that the nature for "0 rent" transfer is the substitution between two kinds of rent type under the background of urbanization process:the unseen "renqing" rent exist among relatives/friends,and the open cash rent(or rent in kind)exist in the open market.Current rural household model ignores the important factor of "renqing" and its impact in the rural society.This study takes into account of"renqing" in the analysis of the utility of land transfer participants and there choices on rent type.The analytical result as bellows:choice on rent type for household transfer land out is determined by "renqing" rent rate,cash rent rate,the marginal utility of "renqing",the marginal utility of cash and the area of the transferred plot.Choice on rent type for household transfer land in is determined by their agricultural operation ability and the area of the transferred plot.In further inspection on rent type under different land allocation structure,this study gaining two conclusion:when land allocation condition is fairly unfair,the substitution of "renqing" for cash rent(or rent in kind)is scarce;when land equally distributed among the vast amount of rural household,the ratio of land transfer in the rent type of "renqing" is declining as the rent rate of "renqing" is declining.Base on theoretical analysis,this study sets up a frame work to compare the feature of land transfer and rent type in 3 different periods:the period before the building up of the PRC,current period and the coming future.The conclusion as bellows:the reason that "0 rent" scarcely exists before the building up of the PRC is the unequal distribution of land among different household,a relative small amount of landlord shares a relative large amount of land,while a relative large amount of peasant shares a small amount of land.Under this situation,the two participants in the land transfer-the household transfer land in and the household transfer land out-are not familiar with each other,thus the average rate of "renqing" is low,while the average rate of cash rent(or rent in kind)is high."0 rent"widely exist in the current stage,the reason lies in the fact that land is equally distributed among the vast amount of rural household,under this situation,each rural household shares small area of land,the total rent amount one household can gain when transferring land out is very small.On the other hand,there are still many farm household in the rural area,those household who decide to transfer land out are easy to find relatives/friends who want to transfer land in,thus the rent rate of "renqing" is high.As more and more rural laborers transferring out of the agriculture sector,the number of rural household who want to transfer land in is declining,therefore,household decide to transfer land out in the coming future would be more difficult to find relatives/friends who want to transfer land in,which results in the declining of "renqing" rent rate and the substitution of cash rent for "renqing"rent.After theoretical analysis and historical comparison,this study analyzes and empirically examines the cause,effect and evolution of "0 rent":1.the reason for the existence of "0 rent" in the current stage;2.the implication of rent type on farm land resource allocation efficiency;3.the evolution of rent type in future.Study 1:Analyzing and empirically inspecting the substitution between "renqing" rent and cash rent(or rent in kind),and examining under what condition will household choose"renqing" as the rent type.The analysis logit as below:under the condition of(large population)/(limited land area)and equally land distribution policy,each rural household can gain only a small amount of rent when transferring land out,the smaller the land plot,or the lower the cash rent rate,the more likely household would choose "renqing" as the rent type;on the other hand,the in-completeness of urbanization in the current stage strengthen the necessity of"renqing" exchange for some household-for instance,migrating household may ask relatives/friends to help secure land property since all members in such household migrate out of the villages,household without young male laborer may ask relatives/friends to help in taking care of the remain residents or in agriculture production,thus these two kinds of household would be more likely to choose "renqing" as the rent type;finally,only when relatives/friends want to transfer land in that household transfer land out can choose"renqing" as the rent type,in other words,the higher the "renqing" rent rate,the higher the probability of "renqing" be chosen as the rent type.Based on survey data collected in 8 municipal city in Jiangsu provinces,the empirical result showing that the relationship of substitution do exist between the "renqing" rent and cash rent,those land transfer without cash rent involves much more content of "renqing"exchange;migrating household and household without young male laborer tend to choose"renqing" as the rent type than other household,while the rising of land plot area,cash rent rate or the ratio of(household transfer land out/household transfer land in)-an indication of the rate of "renqing" rent-tend to reduce the probability of "renqing" rent in land transfer.Study 2:Analyzing and examining the feature of rural household who transferring land in,inspecting the heterogeneity of household who transferring land in.The analysis logit as below:If cash rent is chosen as the rent type of land transfer,land resource will be allocated to those household who offers the highest cash rent rate,thus the rent rate is decided by the product value of the farm land and the extra profit of land operation.Since that the most capable land operators can create the highest extra profit.land would be allocated to the most capable land operators in form of' cash rent rate.If"renqing" is chosen as the rent type,land resource would not be allocated to household who can offer higher cash rent rate,but those household who can offer higher "renqing" rent rate-obviously the relatives/friends of the household who transfer land out.Since that land resource no longer allocated to those household who can create the higher extra profit,household transferring land in in the form of "renqing" rent may have a lower capability of land operation.Based on the survey data collected in 9 municipal city in Jiangsu province,the empirical result showing that household transfer land in with cash rent tend to have a higher evaluation on agricultural operation capability,or have a higher probability of owing agricultural machine,or transfer in bigger land area,or choose a product of higher economic value.Thus heterogeneity do exists among household transfer land in with the two types of rent.If "renqing" is chosen as the rent type of land transfer,the efficiency of land transfer will be lower.Study 3:Analyzing the determinants of the evolution of rent type,examining the impact of the development of non-agricultural labor market on the evolution of rent type."Renqing" rent widely exists in the current stage,the root is that there are still great amount of agricultural laborers and small scale agricultural household in rural area,the ratio of(household transferring land out/household transferring land in)is not high enough,it is not difficult for household to find relatives/friends who want to transfer land in with"renqing" rent.Based on the whole group household survey in 9 municipal cities in Jiangsu province,the study constructs an age structure model concerning agricultural labor and simulate agricultural labor amount trend during 2015-2029,the prediction as below:with the intergeneration transition of rural population,the ratio of(household transferring land out/household transferring land in)will gradually decline in the future.When further investigate the impact of non-agriculture labor market on the quitting of land operation for rural household,it is found that the development of non-agriculture labor market encourage young laborers to quit from land operation,however,the development of labor market impose no significant impact on old rural residents.In general,the intergeneration transition of rural population and the development of non-agricultural labor market will help to boost the evolution of rent type. |
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