Rural-household Differentiation,Institutional Change And Governance Performance Of Rural Grassroots Irrigation System

As one of the most important common-pool-resources in rural China,rural grassroots irrigation system has the functions of drought resistance and flood drainage.It plays an extremely important role in resisting agricultural droughts and floods,and enhancing the resilience of rural communities.However,all public resources belonging to the majority of people are often the least cared for.The “weak-excludable” and “rivalrous” attributes of common-pool-resources make their governance often face the prisoner's dilemma.At the same time,under the case of rural-household differentiation,the asset specificity characteristics of the rural grassroots irrigation system and the irrigation demand characteristics of different types of farmers have shown a trend of differentiation.The foundation of governance of rural grassroots irrigation system based on the relationship gradually collapsed,and the difficulty of achieving long-term governance of rural grassroots irrigation system continues unabated.Adaptive instutions change is a feasible path to deal with the challenge of rural-household differentiation.Combining the differences in production needs of different types of rural-households,summarizing the laws of adaptive instutions change under different rural-household differentiation situations is the key to promote the transformation of the relationship between rural-households differentiation and governance performance of rural grassroots irrigation system from opposition to coordination.This is conducive to the improvement of the governance performance of rural grassroots irrigation system,and plays an important role in realizing the effective connection between the construction of rural grassroots irrigation system and agricultural modernization.Therefore,it has important theoretical and practical significance to introduce the concepts of rural-household differentiation and institutions change into the research framework of rural grassroots irrigation systems' governance.Based on the theories of social differentiation,institutional economics,collective action and commons' governance,this study defines the concepts of rural-household differentiation,institutions changes and rural grassroots irrigation systems' governance performance.In addition,this study reveals the dimensional characteristics and indicator representation basis of the three core variables,and constructs a theoretical framework of how rural-household differentiation and institutional change affect the governance performance of rural grassroots irrigation system.On the basis of two-phase panel data from 237 villages in 10 counties in Henan and Hubei provinces,using the identification strategies of double-case comparative analysis,FE-OLS,IV-FE-OLS,FD-OLS,IV-FD-OLS and PSM,etc,this study explores the impact of rural-household differentiation and institutional changes on the governance performance of the rural grassroots irrigation system.Moreover,it checks the mediation channels of institutional changes between the rural-household differentiation and rural grassroots irrigation systems' governance performance.The main research conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)The boundaries of rural grassroots irrigation system can be divided into two types:structural and non-structural.Structural boundaries refer to the physical boundaries,and non-structural boundaries refer to the economic boundaries,political boundaries,etc.For common-pool-resources such as rural grassroots irrigation system,the lack of physical facilities supply is a first-order dilemma,and the lack of institutions and other non-physical elements supply is a second-order dilemma.Based on the characteristics of“weak-excludable” and “rivalrous” of rural grassroots irrigation system,this paper measures its governance performance from the two dimensions of “supply” and“occupation”.Supply performance actually measures how well the governor overcomes the“weak-excludable” defect of rural grassroots irrigation system,and the occupation performance measures how well the governor overcomes the “rivalrous” defect of rural grassroots irrigation system.The former reflects the availability of the facilities supply,and the latter reflects the system operation continuity.In general,the governance performance of rural grassroots irrigation system of the sample villages has experienced a significant decline from 2013 to 2017,which is mainly reflected in the increase in the burden of facility maintenance costs and the decline in water delivery and drainage capacity.(2)The rural-household differentiation is the consequence of the changes in the production factors allocation of rural-households.Therefore,the structural difference in the production factors allocation of rural-households is the key dimension of rural-household differentiation,which is called horizontal differentiation in this article.In addition,the difference in the innate endowment of rural-household is also an important factor that exacerbates the differentiation of rural-household.Even if factors are allocated in the same way,differences in innate endowments will lead to differentiation of rural-household.This differentiation is reflected in the output differentiation under the same factor allocation method,which is concentrated in the vertical stratification of rural-household income.Therefore,the difference in rural-household income is another important dimension of rural-household differentiation,which is called vertical differentiation of farmers in this article.In general,the horizontal differentiation index and vertical differentiation index of the sample villages showed an upward trend from 2013 to 2017.(3)The operating institutions of rural grassroots irrigation system is actually the game rules that constrain the collective action of irrigation.The changes of the operating institutions of rural grassroots irrigation system are actually the evolution of the seven types of game rules of boundary,position,allocation,information,scope,aggregation and payment.These evolution processes conforms to the general characteristics of institutions change,and is at least partially driven by collective endogenousness.The data analysis results show that from 2013 to 2017,the rural grassroots irrigation system of the sample villages has undergone diversified changes.There are both formal rules and informal norms degenerating into a state of irregularities,and there are also situations where in the case of irregular norms and informal norms evolving to formal rules,there are still quite a few villages that have not undergone rule changes.(4)There is a significant causal relationship between rural-household differentiation and governance performance of rural grassroots irrigation system.Firstly,rural-household differentiation has a significant negative impact on the occupancy performance and overall governance performance of rural grassroots irrigation system.These conclusions have been tested for endogenity and robustness.Secondly,the impact of rural-household differentiation on the governance performance of rural grassroots irrigation system is heterogeneous depending on the type of irrigation facilities,the form of property rights allocation,the degree of agricultural production dependence,the degree of harmony among rural-households,and the existence of “first secretary”.Thirdly,there is no significant “U”or inverted “U” shape relationship between rural-household differentiation and governance performance of rural grassroots irrigation system.Fourth,the rural-household differentiation reduces the efficiency of factors allocation in the governance process,intensifies the perception of uncertainty faced by the governors,and negatively affects the occupation performance and overall governance performance of the rural grassroots irrigation system.(5)There is a significant causal relationship between institutional change and governance performance of rural grassroots irrigation system.Firstly,the evolutionary change of ?allo3(regulations for taking water in a certain order)can significantly improve the occupancy performance of rural grassroots irrigation system.The evolutionary change of ?info2(regulations for the publicity of functional indicators of rural grassroots irrigation system)can significantly improve the supply performance and overall governance performance of rural grassroots irrigation system.The evolutionary change of ?pay2(regulations for apportioning water fees and maintenance costs)can significantly improve the occupancy performance and overall governance performance of rural grassroots irrigation system.These conclusions have been tested for endogenity and robustness.Secondly,the impact of institutional change on the governance performance of rural grassroots irrigation system is heterogeneous depending on the types of irrigation facilities and the degree of dependence on agricultural production.Thirdly,although the evolutionary changes of boundary rules have no direct significant impact on the governance performance of rural grassroots irrigation system.They can be compared with?allo3(regulations for taking water in a certain order),?info2(regulations for the publicity of functional indicators of rural grassroots irrigation system),and ?sco1(regulations that which land can be irrigated)and ?pay2(regulations for apportioning water fees and maintenance costs)interact,and jointly positively affect the governance performance of rural grassroots irrigation system.Fourth,the function channels of “institutional change ?factor input ? governance performance” and “institutional change ? factors allocation efficiency ? governance performance” are partially established.(6)Institution changes have a significant mediation effect between rural-household differentiation and the governance performance of rural grassroots irrigation system.The horizontal differentiation of rural-households can promote the evolution of ?allo3(regulations for taking water in a certain order),?info2(regulations for the publicity of functional indicators of rural grassroots irrigation system),and ?pay2(regulations for apportioning water fees and maintenance costs).At the same time,the evolutionary changes of ?allo3 can significantly improve the occupancy performance of rural grassroots irrigation system.The evolutionary changes of ?info2 can significantly improve the supply performance and overall governance performance of rural grassroots irrigation system.In addition,the evolutionary changes of ?pay2 can significantly improve the occupancy performance and overall governance performance of rural grassroots irrigation system.These conclusions have been tested for endogenity and robustness.The mediation effect channel of “rural-household differentiation ? institutional change ? governance performance” is partially established.In summary,the impact of rural-household differentiation on the governance performance is complex.On the one hand,the rural-household differentiation has a negative direct impact on the governance performance of rural grassroots irrigation system.On the other hand,the rural-household differentiation will drive some evolutionary changes of operating rules;it has a positive indirect impact on the governance performance of rural grassroots irrigation system.Combining the above research conclusions,this paper proposes the following policy recommendations:(1)Accurately identify the constraints of long-term governance,establish and improve governance performance evaluation system;(2)Coordinate the irrigation and drainage needs of farmers,promote the upgrading of facilities;(3)Guide the reform of management and protection mode,and encourage governance mechanisms innovation;(4)Strengthen the construction of grassroots collective action capacity and reconstruct the foundation of cooperation in rural area;(5)Integrate the dominant resources of multiple types of households to support innovation of grassroots irrigation and drainage systems;(6)Explore grassroots irrigation and drainage governance experience,and popularize and spread typical governance models.