| China’s northern grasslands are important ecological security barriers areas and important livestock production bases.ensuring balanced development of the region in terms of ecological environment and economy is the top priority to achieve rural revitalization in pastoral areas.In recent years,due to the impact of natural disasters and human factors,it is difficult for herdsmen to maintain their daily life and livestock development with their own funds,and thus,borrowing has become one of the main means to obtain funds.At present,the coverage of financial services in the pastoral areas is not comprehensive,and the financial market is dysfunctional.That is especifically reflected by the low participation rate of herdsmen in borrowing,the difficulty in meeting demand for production and living loans,and the low amount of borrowing,some herdsmen even fall into the vicious circle of “repaying loans with loans”.Therefore,it is of great practical significance to analyze the characteristics and influencing factors of herdsmen’s loan.Based on the survey data of 453 herdsmen in northern pastoral areas in 2018,this paper uses herding household behavior theory,prospect theory,time preference theory and economy of scale theory as theoretical basis,the Heckman two-stage model is first applied to solve the self-selection bias problem and empirically analyzed whether risk attitude and time preference have an impact on herders’ participation in borrowing and scale of borrowing.Secondly,the heterogeneity of herders’ borrowing behavior is analyzed from several perspectives,including non-farm employment,farming scale,and study area.Finally,three variables including breeding scale,livestock investment,and grazing intensity are introduced as mediating variables to further explore whether risk attitude and time preference play a mediating effect on herding households’ borrowing behavior.The research results show that:(1)The higher degree of risk aversion of herders,the more likely they are to participate in borrowing and the larger the size of borrowing.That is,every unit increase in risk preference,the participation rate of borrowing and the scale of borrowing decreased by 89.80% and 163.30%,respectively.Time preference focuses on the current income dimension has a significantly positive impact on the scale of borrowing,but it has no significant impact on whether to participate in borrowing.(2)There are obvious differences in herding households’ borrowing behavior under different heterogeneity conditions.Compared with herder households with nonfarm employment,the risk attitude of herder households without off-farm employment is significantly negatively correlated with whether to borrow and the scale of borrowing.For the small-scale farmers,their willingness to participate in borrowing is stronger and the scale of borrowing is larger in order to avoid losses caused by risk,while risk attitude has no significant effect on the borrowing behavior of large-scale farmers.For the herdsmen in Inner Mongolia,the risk attitude has a positive impact on whether to borrowing and the scale of borrowing.For the herdsmen in Xinjiang,risk attitude and time preference have no significant effect on the borrowing behavior.(3)Breeding decision behavior show a mediating effect in the effect of risk attitude on the borrowing size of herder households.That is,risk attitude influences the decision of farming scale,farming investment,and grazing intensity behavior through influencing the borrowing scale.There is no mediating effect in the influence of time preference on the borrowing behavior of herder households.Therefore,it is suggest that when formulating rural financial policies,the differences between pastoral and agricultural areas and the personal characteristics of pastoral households should be fully considered to minimize the information asymmetry between financial institutions and pastoral households and to alleviate pastoral borrowing constraints. |
