The Optimization Of The Chinese Farmland Conversion Command And Control System’s Governance Structure

After the year of1978, China has entered a period of rapid development of urbanization and modernization. With the rapid urban constructions, the contradiction between the protection of farmland and urban construction has become ever prominent. No matter it is from maintaining food security, the protection of the ecological balance or the protection of farmers’production and living, protecting farmland has undeniable positive externalities. However, according to our property rights system, the land is owned publicly, which has made China’s land resources become a de facto "Quasi-public goods". In order to solve the "market failure" problem caused by the externalities, China’s central government has developed a very strict land-use control system based on land-use planning and quota. To some extent, the land-use control system has indeed curbed the sprawl of the construction land. But the control scheme policy has its inherent flaws, such as unreasonable distribution, lack of flexibility, high administration costs and so on. Without changing our country’s ownership structure, reforming the existing governance structure of land resources management perhaps is the more feasible and "economical" choice to achieve the balance between economic development and the protection of arable land. Emissions trading policy, which has mature experience in the field of pollution control, is originated from the government command-and-control approach to controlling pollution. While recognizing the necessary of government regulation of governance "Public Goods", the emissions trading policy successfully set up a complete trading system giving the command control system more flexibility. If we can view the land conversion process as a kind of "Pollution", then we can try to draw on the useful experience of emissions trading policy in achieving the balance between government and market, and discussed their transfer to land-use control.The paper first describes the confliction between the rapid urbanization and the farmland protection, and point out that the local governments have become the actual controller of our country’s land conversation rights. The paper has also analyzed the behavior model of the local governments, and believed the game between the local governments will eventually become s prisoner’s dilemma with the existence of the externalities. And this "tragedy of the commons" is the background of the central government’s mandatory intervention.Thereafter, the paper analyzes the land-use control policy is a top-down command and control system based on the three quota of the construction occupancy of arable land, the amount of cultivated land and the basic farmland protection and points out the inherent flaws of the existing system.Subsequently, the paper introduces the emissions trading policy, focusing on the completed structure of the market system and complementary role of the government regulation. Due to the nature of pollutants determine the appropriate cost efficient approach of the market, then this article analyzed the spatial and temporal characteristics of the farmland conversation process. Based on these features, the article continues to explore our reasonable land conversation index trading market mode.At last, the paper choose the Zhejiang, Chengdu and Suqian land conversation indicators trading system as the cases, to study the feasibility of the assumed theoretic mode and make the suggestions and conclusions.