Institutional Changes And The Scale Of The Rural Land Management,

The household responsibility system reform contributed greatly to the development of China's rural economy in the late 70's and early 80's of the 20est century. However, the household responsibility system reform doesn't mean the end of the rural land institutional transition. The establishment and functioning of any institution needs corresponding specific institutional environment. When the environment changes, the institution will show a certain degree of lag, and need adjustments to adapt to the changed environment. Since the middle 80's, the institutional environment has changed a lot with the development of rural economy and the city reform proceeding. These changes have altered the functioning conditions of the household responsibility system. Because of the lag of institution supply, the new institution that adapts to the changed environment doesn't come into being. This leads to the decrease of agricultural comparative interests. The peasants that run for the maximum income, in order to get more income, begin to exit from the current institution. The peasants operate farm in part time and even desert the land. The peasants' conducts to exit eventually lead to the decrease of the land productivity and the stagnation of food output and threat the country's food supply. Government won't let the situation last long and the institution will be changed. The districts create diversified land tenure systems, according to their own economic and natural conditions.This paper focuses on the land institution transition of the post-reform rural China from the perspective of institutional economics. The paper analyzes the cause and process of the land system innovation, studies several main forms of land system innovation and finally makes several pieces of suggestion about the future land institution reform.This paper has five chapters in all. Chapter 1, "Introduction", introduces the study object and the framework of the paper. Chapter 2, "Institutional Transition: the General Theory Analysis", introduces the general theory of institutional transition and puts forwards a theory framework for the following analysis; Chapter 3, "The...