| Developing farmer cooperatives is an important means for the government to solve the problem of decentralized management of small farmers featuring small scale,high cost and low efficiency and also an important way for scholars who research issues concerning agriculture,countryside,and farmers to explore the road of agricultural modernization in China.Relevant information and field research shows that cooperatives,making remarkable results in the reduction of production costs and the enhancement of the income of small farmers,have become crucial organizations in improving the decentralized management of small farmers in China.After the Farmers’ Specialized Cooperatives Law of The People’s Republic of China was enacted in 2007,various types of farmer specialized cooperatives have sprung up like mushrooms across the country.The farmer cooperatives registered according to law have reached 1.669 million by the end of June 2016 and farmer households engaged in cooperatives accounts for about 42.7%in national farmer households.With the increase of the number of farmer professional cooperatives,there are also some problems in the development of farmer cooperatives such as“only one dominant person","large farmer occupied small farmer" and "insider controlled",etc.The internal governance of cooperatives needs to be standardized.Based on the analysis of the theory of property rights,different property rights system will affect the difference of people’s behavior choice and then produce different economic effects.Therefore,the differences in the organization and promotion of small farmers in different farmer cooperatives actually reflect the various outcomes of property rights governance in different cooperatives.Thus,what are the types of property management in China’s farmer cooperatives?What is the formation mechanism of different types of property rights governance in farmer cooperatives?How does various property rights governance affect the participation of members in cooperatives?How do the different types of property rights management and the members’ participation affect the welfare of the members?How do China’s farmer cooperatives improve the situation of small farmers?This thesis will study on the above issues based on the perspective of property rights management.Starting from the status quo of property rights governance of cooperatives,the logical framework of this thesis is constructed on the theory of property rights,transaction cost theory and welfare theory.This thesis re-divides the types of property rights governance of cooperatives on the basis of the analysis of the status quo of property rights governance of cooperatives with field research data and sums up the four main types of property rights governance.Second,it explores the formation mechanism of different property rights of farmer cooperative by theoretical and empirical analysis.Third,it analyzes the participation and the welfare improvement of the members of the farmer cooperatives with different types of property rights governance.It compares the participation and the welfare improvement of the four types of property management cooperatives by means comparison and nonparametric test focusing on the differences between different types of cooperatives and factors of the members’ participation behavior and welfare improvement.At the same time,it explores the factors which influence the participation and welfare improvement of members by constructing the regression model.Sorting out the evolution of farmer cooperative economic organizations of China and their property right governance since the founding of the People’s Republic of China,it analyzes the current situation of property rights governance and international experience of the cooperatives in Germany,the United States and Japan,etc.Based on these,it explores the development trend of farmer cooperatives in China.Fifth,on the basis of dilemma faced by small farmers and their participation,welfare improvement and improvement of production situation,this thesis analyzes the effect of improving four types of property rights on members,and explores the possible evolution path of cooperatives with different types of property rights governance.Finally,the main conclusions and related enlightenment are concluded.The main conclusions and related enlightenment are as follows:First,the connotation of farmer cooperatives’ property rights can be accurately reflected by the ownership structure,decision-making process and surplus profit distribution.Excessive concentration of property rights universally exists in China’s farmer cooperatives."Property rights concentration","large household(capital)dedication","democratic property rights" and "centralized decision-making rights”can represent farmers cooperatives in China’s property rights governance.Based on the research data,the structural equation model is constructed to test connotations of the cooperative property rights,and it is analyzes the status quo of the property right management of cooperatives in our country.On this basis,it builds the new analytic framework of the division of property rights governance of farmer cooperatives in China.The research results show that:(1)ownership structure,decision-making process and surplus profit distribution can accurately reflect connotations of farmer cooperatives’property rights.(2)At present,there are many problems in farmer cooperatives such as the excessive concentration of ownership,the lack of democracy in the decision-making process,and the distribution of dividends by shares of the surplus profit.(3)China’s farmers cooperatives in property rights governance types can be divided into eight types theoretically,"Property rights concentration","large household(capital)dedication","democratic property rights" and“centralized decision-making rights" can basically represent the majority of farmers cooperatives in China’ s property rights governance.Second,the different types of property rights of cooperatives are the results of the combination of the characteristics of member’s resource elements and endowments,member heterogeneity and the composition of the members at the beginning of its formation.It follows the distribution of the general property rights structure of the relationship between ownership,the right of decision-making and surplus profit distribution,and also affects by the transaction costs and participation purpose in the operation of cooperatives.This thesis explores the distribution law of farmer cooperatives’ property rights,and the formation path of different types of cooperatives according to the mechanism of property right connotations.Meanwhile,it analyzes the formation process of four types of property rights governance with typical cases.The result shows that:(1)Ownership structure,decision-making process and distribution of residual profit are interrelated and interacted in the reflection of property rights governance issues.Ownership structure has an impact on decision-making process and the distribution of surplus benefits,and decision-making process can also affect the distribution of surplus profits.(2)The general distribution characteristics of the cooperative property rights were determined by characteristics of members such as resource elements and endowments,heterogeneity and the composition at the beginning of construction and the relationship between connotations of property rights.(3)The factors such as transaction costs and member’s participation of cooperatives have an impact on the structure of the cooperative property,resulting in a special distribution.(4)Taking the ownership of farmer cooperative as the logical starting point,the formation path and probability distribution of different property rights of cooperatives can be clarified with the integration of relationships and special distribution laws between connotations of property rights,which further explains why there are only four kinds of property rights have larger probability.Third,there are significant differences in the mean and distribution of the participation of farmer cooperatives with different types of property rights in"business participation","technology adoption" and "emotional participation".The regression results show that types of cooperative property right have a significant effect on the participation of small farmers.At the same time,the factors such as the educational level of the members,the scale of family cultivation(farming)and the competitive environment have also affected the participation of small members.Studies show that:(1)Comparing the core members of cooperatives with the average participation of traditional small farmers,it is found that the participation of core members(5.00,5.00 and 5.00)is generally higher than that of small farmers(3.024,2.824 and 2.872).(2)Comparing the mean value of the participation of small farmers with different types of property rights,it is found that the participation of small farmers in"democratic property rights" cooperatives is highly involved in the three kinds of participating behavior;the participation of the small farmers in the "centralized decision-making rights" cooperatives is higher than that of "large household(capital)dedication" except for "technology adoption";while the participation of small household members in the "centralized property rights" cooperatives is the lowest among the four types of cooperatives.(3)With nonparametric test for the participation of small farmers in cooperatives,the result shows that there are significant differences in the participation of small farmers in the four main types of cooperatives.Expert for there is no significant differences in "technology adoption" between small farmer members of“democratic property rights" and "large household(capital)dedication" cooperatives,small farmer members of any two types of property right management have significant differences in the three participation behaviors.(4)Constructing the regression model of influencing factors of participating behavior of small farmers,the results show that "large household(capital)dedication","democratic property rights" have positive impacts on three participation behaviors.The participation of these three types of cooperative members were significantly higher than that of the "centralized property rights".In addition,the educational level of members,the scale of family farming(breeding),the difficulty of harvesting,the industrial category,the competitive environment,the standard requirements for sale and other factors also affect the participation of small farmers.Fourthly,the "large household(capital)dedication","democratic property rights" and "centralized decision-making rights" cooperatives have its own merits in improving welfare for members such as "economic benefits","market capacity","special service" and "added value".However,no matter what kind of benefits,the cooperatives with "centralized property rights”have the worst effects.The types of cooperative property rights and the participation of members have a significant effect on the benefit improvement of small farmers,and the participation of members plays a full or partial intermediary role in most cases.The status quo of welfare improvement for farmer cooperative members was analyzed based on the research data.It compares the welfare improvement of small farmer in different types of farmer cooperatives by means comparison and non-parametric tests.Meanwhile,it systematically analyzes factors of welfare improvement for small farmers by constructing multi-level regression equation model.Studies show that:(1)The benefit improvement of the core members was significantly higher than that of the small farmers(Taking rebate dividend ratio as an example,the mean value of core members and the small members are 14.64%and 0.50%separately).(2)There were significant differences in the welfare improvement of the four major types of cooperatives,and there were obvious differences in benefit improvement between the two types of cooperatives in most cases.(3)The types of cooperative property rights and the participation of members have a significant effect on welfare improvement of small farmers,and the participation of members plays a full or partial intermediary role in most cases.Fifthly,the Chinese farmer cooperative economic organization has experienced from being spontaneously organized by farmers based on means of production to being highly controlled by the government,and then to being spontaneously organized by farmers based on fund.From the perspective of property rights management,farmer cooperatives are the most ideal form of organization in theory.With the conclusions of cooperatives development in Germany,American and Japan,it is suggested that the cooperatives in our country should eliminate the property rights gap between the members,and standardize the cooperative property rights from the aspects of ownership structure,decision-making process and the distribution of surplus profits.It analyzes the evolution of farmer cooperative economic organizations and situations of property right governance and compares the development experience of foreign cooperatives.Results show that:(1)farmer cooperative economic organizations have experienced from being spontaneously organized by farmers based on means of production(support group,elementary agricultural cooperative team)-highly controlled by government(advanced agricultural cooperative team,people’s commune)-being organized by farmers on the basis of funds(joint-stock cooperative enterprises,cooperatives).Each stage of farmer cooperative economic organization has different characteristics of property rights governance.In conclusion,cooperatives are the ideal form of organization in theory,but there is a big gap between the requirements of the system of property rights of farmer cooperatives and the actual situation.(2)Exploring the development and property rights governance of agricultural cooperatives in Germany,the United States and Japan,it finds that they have commonalities such as encouraging members to become a shareholder,clarifying rights of members and distributing surplus profits by turnover.It is concluded that the Chinese farmer cooperatives should strengthen the cognition of the members’rights to the cooperative property,standardize the ownership structure,construct the democratic decision-making right system and standardize the distribution system of the surplus profit.Sixth,in terms of improving the situation of small farmers,the best is "property rights democracy",followed by "centralized decision-making rights","large household(capital)driven" and "centralized property rights"."Democratic property right" is the ideal type of current cooperatives and "centralized decision-making right" may be the mainstream type of future cooperatives.Therefore,the farmer specialized cooperatives in our country should take the initiatives such as "attracting more members to invest in shares","decentralization of core members" and "hiring professional managers" to evolve into cooperative with "democratic property right"or "centralized decision-making right".On the basis of clarifying the main plight of small farmers,analyzing the mechanism of farmer cooperatives to improve the situation of small farmers,this thesis compares the effect difference of four kinds of property cooperatives in improving the situation of small farmers and puts forward the evolution path of property right management for cooperatives.Studies suggest that:(1)To improve the situation of small farmers,On the one hand,small farmer members should participate in cooperatives to integrate with the property right management of cooperatives for improving the welfare of them.On the other hand,farmer cooperatives should construct a relatively democratic system of property right management,and provide a strong system guarantee for members to participate in cooperatives.(2)In four types of property rights,“democratic property rights" is the best in terms of improving the situation of small farmers,followed by"centralized decision-making rights","large household(capital)driven" and“centralized property rights".(3)"Democratic property right" is the ideal type of current cooperatives and "centralized decision-making right" may be the mainstream type of future cooperatives.Therefore,the farmer specialized cooperatives in our country should take the initiatives such as“attracting more members to invest in shares","decentralization of core members" and "hiring professional managers" to evolve into cooperative with"democratic property right" or "centralized decision-making right".The innovations and contributions of this study are mainly manifested in the following three aspects:Firstly,from the perspective of research,this study explores the operational effect of cooperatives from the perspective of improving welfare of small farmers,and analyzes whether the small farmers can improve the situation through cooperatives.In the past studies,scholars focused on whether the nature of cooperatives is changing,whether cooperatives are "real" cooperatives,or explored the overall operational performance of cooperatives,while issues that the purpose of organizing cooperatives is to improve the diversification of the small farmers operating difficulties and overall performance does not represent the interests of small farmers were ignored by them.At the same time,exploring from the economic interests,market capacity,special services and added value aspects of small farmers to improve the benefits of members,this study is more objective compared with former studies which only explored from the economic interests of the members.Secondly,constructing a new analytic framework for the division of the types of cooperative property rights,based on the analytic framework,this study explores the improvement of the participation behavior and welfare of small farmers in different types of cooperatives,which provides a foundation for analyzing the reasons for the differences between different cooperatives in driving small farmers.The previous research for the division of the types of farmer cooperatives is single in dividing dimension and subjective in dividing basis the(or easily influenced by subjective judgment error of the respondents).These studies have focused on comparing different types of operational effects or exploring their formation mechanisms without analyzing in depth the differences in operating performance between different cooperatives.Thirdly,on the basis of comparative analysis,this paper analyzes the ranking of different types of cooperatives in improving the situation of small farmers,and then explores the evolution path of the governance of farmer cooperatives in China.The previous research focused more on the comparison of different cooperatives in some aspects without arranging a comprehensive sequence and exploring in-depth transformation and evolution path for different types of property cooperatives(Such as the co-operatives can not be transformed from "leading driven mode" into "large household driven mode").This study not only analyzes the ideal types of cooperatives and the possible trends of the future,but also explores the obstacles and solutions that may be encountered in the evolution of cooperatives in different types of property rights,and puts forward some feasible suggestions for the development of cooperatives. |
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