The Will Of Farmers Who Transfer-Out Rural Land In Contract Selection

The household contract responsibility system characterized by equal division of farmland has obtained remarkable effect,but its instability and dispersion because land distribution change along with the change of population is doomed to be the inevitable institutional defect;concurrent-business farmers,the aging of labor force and marginalized agriculture have caused a great loss of efficiency in the allocation of resources;discarded and fragmented land,and small scale of operation impede or even abandon the application of many scientific and technological achievements,causing “the tragedy of the commons” in irrigation and water conservancy facilities and the like.Accompanied by the rapid advance of industrialization and urbanization and the loosen man-land relationship,the dependence of farmers on farmland greatly reduced,so as to make the rural land transfer a realistic possibility.The state also encourages the rural land transfer,as early as in 1984 the No.1 document began to encourage rural land centralized to farming experts.In addition,studies have shown that the rural land transfer has significant potential benefits.The above have commonly expressed the necessity and possibility of rural land transfer.Must be emphasized that the rural land transfer in nature is the transactions of the management right attached to the contract right of farmers,while the stability of the transaction of management right expresses as the selection of transfer contract and its stability.If the main body who transfer-in farmland can be diversified,then those who transfer-out is bounded uniquely to farmers.Therefore,the study of the behaviors of farmers who transfer-out can discover important implied problems of rural land transfer and its contract selections.Farmers as the main body of rural land transfer market,their decisions are the result of rational choice after the cost-benefit measure.However,the farmers' decisions are affected by the degree of rationality(cognitive)and the surrounding environment(associated with the transaction cost).Analyzing the transaction cost of rural land transfer that has occurred and that has not is not the same thing.From the aspect of encouraging rural land transfer,discussion of the cognitive of the transaction cost of those farmers who have not yet transfer-out,to reveal the internal constraints of low rate of rural land transfer,perhaps containing more policy significance and practical value.This paper puts forward the following questions: first,why farmers preferred relatives,friends and neighbors in general when they transfer-out farmland? What factors hindered the farmers' will of transferring farmland to other objects? Second,what are the determinants of the contract selection in terms of form and term? Third,what kind of matching relationship existed between the object selection and contract selection?The research dimension of this paper:(1)farmers are divided into two types,one is those who have occurred the behavior of transfer-out farmland,and the other is those who have not.The paper focuses on the latter's will;(2)focus on the cognition of the transaction cost of farmers who have not transfer-out in the process of rural land transfer;(3)focus on the comparative study of two aspects: the cognition of farmers who have not transfer-out towards different dimension of transaction cost,and the other is the cognition of transaction cost of different farmers.The main conclusions are as follows:1.the differences of rural land transfer object.The first difference is the object selection in rural land transfer.Farmers tend to prefer relatives and friends and neighbors,and the object selection follows the successive reduction sequence of “relatives and friends and neighbors – ordinary farmers – major producers – leading enterprises”.The second difference is the influencing factors affecting the will of object selection.The object selection of farmers who transfer-out farmland depends not only on the cost-benefit trade-off and measure of personal ability,but also fundamentally affected by the characteristics of the objects themselves.The paper further divide the rural land transfer market into “relation-oriented market” and “element-oriented market”,among them the transaction with relatives and friends and neighbors belongs to complete relation-oriented market,and it turns gradually to element-oriented market along with transferring to major producer,cooperatives and leading enterprises,when transferring to the leading enterprises it belongs to complete element-oriented market.Different preferences of farmers to security gains and economic benefits,different interference of transaction cost to pricing mechanism,and different selection due to different negotiation ability of trading participants have been revealed in the process of dealing with different trading partners.2.In rural land transfer,farmers who have not transfer-out select long-term contract tend to reduce the transaction cost which would increase as the rising transaction frequency in the relation-oriented market,but it is not obvious in the element-oriented market;in the case of higher uncertainty,farmers tend to select short-term contract in element-oriented market but select long-term contract in relation-oriented market;in the case of higher asset specificity,farmers select short-term contract to reach agreements with relatives and friends and neighbors,in the element-oriented market also exists this relationship,but not significantly.3.In the complete relation-oriented market,in the case of comparable negotiation ability,and expecting rising economic benefits,farmers who have not transfer-out take a profit attitude to select short-term contract to obtain the opportunity to negotiate again to maximize their benefits.But in a society of acquaintances,reputation and trust are extremely important,farmers who have not transfer-out consider not only the economic benefits,but also more about reputation and other derivative security gains,therefore the expected economic benefits has not shown significant impact on contract selection.Similarly,in the element-oriented market,although farmers have the need to lock in profits,the mistrust in those who transfer-in and insufficient negotiation ability make the rising economic benefits fail to obviously affect the contract selection.4.The deviation of farmers' cognition causes that the matching between the transfer object and contract duration can not reach the optimal level.In the element-oriented market,low cognition of transaction cost of those who have not transfer-out let them choose more element-orient objects than those who have transfer-out already,the expected economic benefits decide the length of time in the contract;in the relation-oriented market,high cognition of transaction cost of those who have not transfer-out let them select more relation-oriented objects than those who have transfer-out,and high cognition of asset specificity let them tend to sign short-term contract with relation-oriented objects.The deviation of cognition would highly possible let them select unstable matching of object and contract,then hinder the efficiency of rural land transfer.5.Although affected by the informal institution,cognitive bias of negotiation ability and opportunism tendency,the cognition of transaction cost of farmers who have not transfer-out towards element-oriented object is lower than that of farmers who have transfer-out,overall high transaction cost affect all farmers not to choose element-oriented objects.Therefore,to promote the rural land transfer change from the relation-oriented market to element-oriented market needs considering three aspects,to reduce the actual transaction cost to promote circulation;to regulate the circulation contract by laws and regulations hence to protect the interests of both parties in circulation;to introduce market oriented subject,regulate the pricing mechanism,to guide the rural land transfer market through earnings expectation.The implied policy implications by the research conclusion are: the promotion of the land contract and management right has dual meaning in improving the intensity of property rights and the efficiency of resource allocation.But the reality contrast reveal that strengthening the intensity of property rights may not improve evaluation of potential value of goods so as to promote the its transaction.This study shows that,in order to improve the transaction efficiency of farmland property rights,we must further consider the particularity and its institutional meanings of rural land transfer: first,the rent pricing of rural land is not only decided by the revenue stream generated by farmland management,but also need to consider the degree of security of its multiple rights associated with the land.So we need to empower farmers with the land property rights to effectively weaken the dependence on agricultural production and operation income,and thus it is possible to realize the compatibility of multiple policy objectives including increasing farmers' income,protecting farmers' land rights and promoting the rural land transfer.Second,only empowering farmers with land property rights,through the combination of land and capital,combination of land and entrepreneur ability,those competent participants and modern production factors have the possibility to enter the agriculture,thus land centralization and scale operation can be succeed,and farmers is likely to gain the property income.