Land Property Rights and Natural Resource Use

The general objective of this volume is to assess the effects of China's rural land property system on land allocation and land use. For almost 30 years, farmers have individual land use rights, but a number of problems remain. Land reallocations cause tenure insecurity and an underinvestment in land. Land use rights are not allowed to be used as collateral for accessing credit. Furthermore, women are discriminated in the land allocation process. These issues are analyzed at the household as well as the village level. The results show that there exists significant heterogeneity rather than a uniform tenure system. The emerging land rental market can mitigate some of the defects of the land tenure system, but there exist administrative restrictions as well as information deficits which should be overcome by suitable institutional innovations.

Autorentext
The Author: Stephan Piotrowski, born in 1977 in Hamburg, obtained a Master degree in agriculture from the University of Göttingen and was awarded a Ph.D. in agricultural economics from the University of Hohenheim. He currently works as an agricultural economist in the private sector. His research focus is natural resource management and the analysis of agricultural markets.

Inhalt
Contents: Land rental markets in developing countries Agriculture in the North China Plain Rural land policies in China Household and village survey Methodology for the data analysis Descriptive and econometric analysis Main results, policy recommendations and suggestions for further research.