Essays on China's Rural Land Rental Market: Institutions and Contract Design

dc.contributor.advisorLeonard, Kennethen_US
dc.contributor.advisorMurrell, Peteren_US
dc.contributor.authorYang, Ziyanen_US
dc.contributor.departmentAgricultural and Resource Economicsen_US
dc.contributor.publisherDigital Repository at the University of Marylanden_US
dc.contributor.publisherUniversity of Maryland (College Park, Md.)en_US
dc.date.accessioned2017-06-22T06:10:27Z
dc.date.available2017-06-22T06:10:27Z
dc.date.issued2017en_US
dc.description.abstractChina's rural land rental market, a gradually maturing market, is now revolutionizing agriculture in China by facilitating the upgrading of smallholder production to factory farming. I study a mature rural land rental market using survey data I collected in 2014, concentrating on institutions of the market and rental contract design. Chapter 1 focuses on the relationship between the rural land rental market and China's institutions for rural land and agricultural production in the past 30 years. Chapter 2 is devoted to survey design and data collection, introducing a new survey method that remedies deficiency of existing data and important variables that capture recent developments of the market. Chapter 3 describes the survey data from three perspectives to emphasize recent developments of the market, which includes heterogeneity in transactions (large-scale vs. small-scale) and market structure (modern vs. traditional) and changes in the role the village administration played in the market. Chapters 4 and 5, with different research focuses, analyze rental contracts as ex-ante responses to ex-post contract violation associated with the primary uncertainty in the market. Chapter 4 focuses on a hold-up transaction cost associated with the bargaining over contractual formality, which is caused by rental partners’ asymmetric preferences over contractual formality. I find that traditional rental transactions that occur only because of social proximity and the involvement of village administration are gradually being eliminated due to high transaction cost. Instead, the renting-in entrepreneurs from outside of the village are encouraged. In addition, I find that the renting-in agents usually lead the bargaining. Chapter 5 concentrates on the bargaining over two important contractual terms: contractual flexibility and rental payment. My theory shows which equations should be estimated in an empirical test of the bargaining process. I draw two empirical conclusions. First, local entrepreneurs, as the renting-in agents, decrease contractual flexibility and increase rental payment, which promotes agricultural and village development. Second, the rental payment offered to the renting-out agents with long-term non-agricultural employment is higher than that offered to the renting-out agents with short-term or temporary employment, suggesting a potential increase in income inequality within the village.en_US
dc.identifierhttps://doi.org/10.13016/M2GZ8P
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/19426
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledAgriculture economicsen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledEconomicsen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledChinese Economyen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledContracten_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledLand Rentalsen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledNash Bargainingen_US
dc.titleEssays on China's Rural Land Rental Market: Institutions and Contract Designen_US
dc.typeDissertationen_US

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