Farmland Conversion: Equity, Efficiency, And Public Welfare

Since the reform and open up policy, with the expansion of population, growth of economy, and speedup of urbanization, great deal of farmland has been transferred from agricultural to no-agricultural industry. On the one hand the transfer has contributed a lot in providing land to ensure the full development of the national economy, on the other hand, it's negative effects have also impacted the fair allocation of social welfare. As a result, the allocation efficiency of farmland has been decreased and social welfare had been lost. Therefore the suitable quantity and timetable of transfer should be established aiming at the maximum of total social welfare. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the full impacts of transfer on social-economic welfare, equality, efficiency, and also the change of economic welfare on governments (local and central), village and farm levels. Meanwhile, the author analyzed characteristic of behaviors of these stakeholders during the transferring course. All of these can provide theoretical basis for establishment of controlling aim, evaluating basis, the realizing mechanism and the implement of public polices in farmland conversion.Chapter 1 introduced the background of this research and put forward the research issued —appraisal and optimized allocation of land transfer from agricultural to non-agricultural use, and then reviewed the existing research outcomes at abroad and home. At the end of this chapter the content, the methodology, researching route, creativity and possible deficiency have been summarized.Equity and efficiency are ideal aim of farmland resource allocation. However equity and efficiency can be understood in different ways as relative to people's value judgment. Hence Chapter 2 discussed the meaning of equity and efficiency in the course of farmland transfer, realizing mechanism and criterion. The Pareto Principle and its compensation principle are regarded as the effective criterion to measure allocation efficiency. The basic prerequisite for Pareto Principle is completed marketing system. However because of features of land, such as scarcity, multi-use, multi-value and externality, public goods, which bring error price information in current market system.Equity of resource allocation can be judged upon different viewpoints, including Utilitarianism, Rawlsism, Equalitarianism, and sustained development principle. According...