Village Political Economy, Land Tenure Insecurity, and the Rural to Urban Migration Decision : Evidence from China

Giles, John ; Mu, Ren

World Bank Group, Washington, DC

关键词: ACCESS TO LAND;    AGRICULTURAL LAND;    AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION;    AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY;    AGRICULTURE;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7080
RP-ID  :  WPS7080

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper investigates the impact ofland tenure insecurity on the migration decisions ofChina's rural residents. A simple model first framesthe relationship among these variables and the probabilitythat a reallocation of land will occur in the followingyear. After first demonstrating that a village leader'ssupport for administrative land reallocation carries with itthe risk of losing a future election, the paper exploitselection-timing and village heterogeneity in lineage groupcomposition and demographic change to identify the effect ofland security. In response to an expected land reallocationin the following year, the probability that a rural residentmigrates out of the county declines by 2.8 percentagepoints, which accounts for 17.5 percent of the annual shareof village residents, aged 16 to 50, who worked as migrantsduring the period. This finding underscores the potentialimportance of secure property rights for facilitating labormarket integration and the movement of labor out of agriculture.